Novi Sad (Serbia), March 7 (IANS) India lost the Davis Cup World Group first round tie to defending champions Serbia 1-4 after Somdev Devvarman and Karan Rastogi went down in straight sets in the two reverse singles here Sunday.
Somdev failed to reproduce his opening day's performance to go down 4-6, 2-6, 5-7 to Viktor Troicki in the first reverse singles.
Rastogi, playing in the dead fifth rubber which was reduced to three sets, was blown away by Janko Tipsarevic 0-6, 1-6.
Somdev, who came out in the tie for the third straight day, showed the will to fight but failed to get the measure of the inspired Troicki, who was stretched to five sets by Rohan Bopanna in the first singles Friday.
Somdev, who levelled the tie 1-1 with his sensational win over World No.45 Tipsarevic Friday, also played in the thrilling doubles match with Bopanna Saturday where India went down fighting to Nenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozolja in four sets.
India will now be back in the play-off round. They had secured their place in the elite 16 for the second straight year by defeating Brazil 3-2 at home.
After trailing 1-2 down Saturday, Somdev needed to pull off a win against World No.18 Troicki to keep India's hopes in the tie alive. It was not to be.
The battle, however, was a lot keener than what the final scoreline suggests. Somdev, ranked 93, made Troicki work for every point and the match was drawn into long rallies, with the Serb coming on top most of the times. Troicki also served better, banging 11 aces, compared to India's two. Somdev could hit only 29 winners against Troicki's 40.
The rubber, though, was once again marred by contentious line calls and Indian captain S.P.Misra and Somdev were involved in a bitter argument with the referee and the chair umpire over a point in the third set where the ball was wrongly called in. The final decision, however went against the Indian.
After losing the first two sets, Somdev showed signs of fightback by cruising to a 3-1 lead in the third set but dropped his serve immediately to break even. The Indian had a couple of chances to break the Serb's serve in the set but could not convert them.
Troicki then broke him in the 11th game to serve out the set and the match after two hours and 43 minutes.