At the same time Pat Cummins and his men were edging their way towards an unbearably tense but epic victory over the old enemy, Alex de Minaur was silencing another British full house in 85 far less dramatic minutes.
The Australian No.1 dispatched the former world No.1 Andy Murray 6-3 6-1 at the Queen's Club in London, all-but ending the two-time Wimbledon champ's hopes of being seeded at this year's tournament.
Murray had won 10 successive matches on grass winning titles at Surbiton and Nottingham, but found world No.18 de Minaur a much tougher proposition.
It was the fourth victory in four meetings between the pair for de Minaur, but the first on grass which will give the Sydneysider confidence ahead of his trip to SW19.
He broke Murray, a five-time winner of this event, twice in each set, but held his own, saving the three break points he faced.
Murray said he would need to find new tactics were he to come up against the Australian at Wimbledon.
"The last couple of matches with him have been pretty one-sided. If I do come up against him I will obviously need to look at that and see what I can do differently.
"He doesn't have too many holes in his game. He's all around pretty solid. He moves very well, returns good, hits a pretty flat ball. So it's not always that easy to take big cuts at the ball yourself and push him around when the ball is staying so low."
De Minaur now plays Argentina's Diego Schwartzman. He is joined in the second round by Jordan Thompson, who beat a third Australian, Alexei Popyrin, 6-4 6-4.
De Minaur's one-sided demolition of Murray was a disappointment for a Centre Court crowd that had previously enjoyed two excellent matches.
After second seed Holger Rune beat big-serving American Maxime Cressy 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-3) for his first grass-court ATP win, top seed Carlos Alcaraz took to the stage, and initially stumbled on it.
Making his debut at this event, the Spaniard found lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech in defiant mood.
The 83-ranked Frenchman, who only found out he was playing when Arthur Fils withdrew a couple of hours beforehand, took the first set, twice breaking.
The world No.1 rallied to win 4-6 7-5 7-6 (7-3) but admitted, "It has been a really tough match. It was really difficult for me at the beginning to adapt my tennis, my game, to the grass."
"It’s tough playing here but I enjoy playing on grass and it’s a tournament I really wanted to play,” Alcaraz added.
Frances Tiafoe won his first match as a top-10 player, defeating Botic van de Zandschulp 6-2 6-4 while Taylor Fritz, Jiri Lehecka, Adrian Mannarino and Grigor Dimitrov also progressed.
Elsewhere, in Halle, Alexander Zverev delivered a strong performance on home soil to defeat Dominic Thiem winning 6-3 6-4.
Third seed Andrey Rublev defeated Wu Yibing 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-2.
There were also expected victories for Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Sonego, Hubert Hurkacz and Roberto Bautista Agut, but No.7 seed Borna Coric lost to Alexander Bublik.
