Cameron Norrie bailed Dan Evans out of trouble as Great Britain ended day one of their Davis Cup qualifier against Colombia with the scores tied at 1-1.
Earlier on Friday, Evans had suffered a shock three-set defeat to world number 253 Nicolas Mejia, who posted the biggest win of his career in front of the home crowd at the Pueblo Viejo Country Club.
However, British number one Norrie quickly restored parity for GB with a 6-2 7-5 win over Nicolas Barrientos, taking just one hour and 21 minutes to defeat the world number 510.
Fighting back from 40-15 down in the opening game, Norrie broke Barrientos's serve straight away and maintained his two-game advantage until the seventh, where double faults from Barrientos proved fatal.
Norrie was handed three break points after one double fault from the Colombian, who saved one of them before finding the net twice again to gift the British number one a 5-2 lead.
Norrie accepted that gift with open arms - holding to love in his next service game to take the first set with aplomb, despite hitting just one winner compared to Barrientos's seven.
Best of the action as @cam_norrie fought back to level our @DavisCup tie 1-1 against Columbia#BackTheBrits 🇬🇧 | #DavisCup pic.twitter.com/VloiYonSY4
— LTA (@the_LTA) February 4, 2023
A break to love in the first game of the second set would seemingly be a sign of things to come for Barrientos, who double-faulted on his second point of the set before managing to earn a surprise break back straight away.
Barrientos backed up that break with a love hold - firing his first ace of the day - and he remarkably brought up five break points on Norrie's serve in the fourth game, but the 35-year-old squandered all five of them and witnessed successive aces fly past him as Norrie came through.
Failing to convert yet another break point on Norrie's serve in game six, it was not for the want of trying for Barrientos in front of the raucous home crowd, but those missed chances would prove costly.
After eight consecutive holds, Norrie finally broke Barrientos's resistance with a break in the 11th game, and he saw out a comfortable hold to get GB on the board.
Despite being down on the winners count and also hitting 13 unforced errors compared to nine for Barrientos in the second set, nine aces were crucial for Norrie, who also saved seven of the eight break points that he faced on the day.
On Saturday, Evans will return alongside Neal Skupski to take on Robert Farah and Juan Sebastian Cabal - the former world number one pairing in doubles.
Norrie will then attempt to avenge his teammate's defeat against Mejia in match four, before Evans and Barrientos conclude proceedings on the clay.
Ben Knapton
