On a day of tension and emotion, Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski lost their singles matches to their American opponents in the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham to leave Britain's Davis Cup hopes hanging by a thread.

First there was the drama of Henman - edged out in five thrilling sets 7-6 (7/2) 2-6 7-6 (3/7) 6-7 (10/12) 7-5 by former world number one Jim Courier, who produced a display of gutsy tennis reminiscent of his Grand Slamwinning heyday.

Then there was the despair of Rusedski - swept aside by Todd Martin 6-4 6-4 6-2 to make it a nightmare start for Britain.

Reigning champions Sweden also face an uphill battle after losing both opening singles games to Slovakia in their first round match yesterday in the Swedish town of Trollhattan.

Slovakia's Karol Kucera won the opening match against Thomas Johansson and Dominik Hrbaty pressed home the advantage with a shock five-set win over world number 15 Thomas Enqvist. But Sweden also trailed 2-0 in the same match last year - and still went on to win.

Australia had mixed fortunes in their bid to avoid a repeat of last year's embarrassing defeat by Zimbabwe. World number nine Mark Philippoussis lost the opener to Byron Black, but Pat Rafter hit back against Wayne Black to square the tie 1-1.

For Britain, Henman and Rusedski must redeem themselves if their challenge is to go further.

Martin and Courier showed real fighting spirit yesterday, no doubt stung by claims that they were a second-string side in the absence of world number one Pete Sampras and the disaffected Andre Agassi.

In the home, appropriately, of television's The Gladiators, 9,400 fans packed in to leave the atmosphere fairly crackling with expectation and at times, as Henman and Courier battled toe-to-toe, it was like two Wild West gunslingers slugging it out.

Henman entered the arena to Robbie Williams's Let Me Entertain You. But it was Courier, who ended up whirling around his team-mates performing euphoric high-fives at the point of victory.

Henman seemed to have entered the match with the wrong tactics. Too often he was prepared to slug it out from the back with Courier. And where Henman has undoubted potential, Courier has real class. In the end, it was Henman's erratic serve which crushed him - his 16th double fault of the match in the 12th game allowed Courier to step in to clinch victory.

But if Henman's was a tale of glorious failure, Rusedski's was a story of annihilation.

He lost his first service games in the first two sets and while he briefly flickered by breaking the 6ft 6in American in the sixth game of the second, he was barely given another chance. World number eight Martin took complete command with a rasping array of shots on either wing which flashed past the big lefthander, who was in a strangelymuted mood.