It was a tough tennis weekend for SA after Bosnia and Herzegovina wrapped up a 4-0 win in the Davis Cup World Group II tie played at Irene Country Club in Centurion on Sunday.
Entering the second day of the tie 2-0 down, the SA team made a late change to their doubles pairing, with top-ranked player Philip Henning replacing Thando Longwe-Smit.
Henning and Alec Beckley struggled, however, against big-serving duo Mirza Basic and Nerman Fatic, who earned a 6-4 6-4 victory after taking advantage of the fast conditions on hardcourt at altitude.
With the visitors holding an unassailable 3-0 lead after the doubles clash, Longwe-Smit turned out in a dead rubber singles match against Fatic, with the Bosnian player claiming a 7-6 6-1 win.
Henning credited his teammates for putting up a fight throughout the two-day tie against higher-ranked opponents.
He felt it was closer than the 4-0 scoreline suggested, and he was confident they could bounce back in the World Group II playoffs to be held early next year.
"In every single match, even though they got the upper hand, I feel the advantage was so small. It was a couple of break points here, and if they had gone the other way you never know what could have happened," Henning said.
"At the end of the day it's back to the drawing board and hopefully in February we can really turn it around."
SA team captain Pietie Norval admitted he was a little surprised by the high-quality performances of their opposition in conditions the South Africans had hoped would work in their favour.
"We had a couple of plans to try give ourselves the best chance, but they came out a bit better than I thought," Norval said.
"We prepared as well as we could and there were two close matches on day one. With maybe a slightly better level every now and again, we could have won one of them, I think, but we didn't. And I felt in the doubles they were too good for us today.
"So, to sum it up, I thought we were pretty competitive yesterday, but today we got outplayed. They were very strong."