Dean Barker, the SoftBank Team Japan skipper, was left lamenting a costly slip — quite literally — that enabled Artemis Racing to split the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Play-offs.

Team Japan looked set for back-to-back wins on the opening day of the semi-finals, clinching the first race by a comfortable margin, but losing the second after a blunder by Barker allowed Artemis to seize control.

Based on yesterday’s racing, the best-of-nine series promises to be a captivating one, with Barker reasonably satisfied after the opening duels on the Great Sound.

“We’re pretty happy all around,” Barker, the team’s helmsman, said. “We had a really good first race and we were delighted with our sailing to take that victory.

“Clearly the boat is going pretty quick, particularly upwind, and we feel strong in these [shifty] conditions.

“It was disappointing not to come away with the two wins, but we can be very encouraged by the way we’re sailing.”

Had it not been for a misstep by Barker, with the Kiwi taking a tumble on the trampoline after tacking poorly, Team Japan might well have taken a two-race lead into today’s racing.

Instead, the contest is evenly poised after Barker’s opposite number, Nathan Outteridge, capitalised on the error while benefiting from a generous wind shift, stretching away for the victory.

“It certainly wasn’t a planned move,” Barker said of his fall. “We had a bit of a bad gybe ... when you cross the boat, it can look a bit uncoordinated and we managed to do a pretty good job of that.

“We had a good start and were leading comfortably, but that bad gybe allowed them to take control.

“It is never ideal to have a poor manoeuvre like that, but we go away and refocus on what we need to do going forward.”

Outteridge, too, appeared equally content with his afternoon’s work and believes there is very little between the two syndicates.

“I’m very happy overall to get a point on the board,” Outteridge said.

“We had two tough battles but we sailed really well and I thought the pace of the boat was great throughout the day.

“We were unfortunate to lose the first race because we let them through, but in the second race we kept the hammer down and took a nice win.”

Although the higher wind speeds yesterday arguably favoured Artemis, who won both qualifying meetings between the two teams, it was Barker and his crew who stepped up in the first outing.

After a close start, Artemis stole the early advantage to reach the first mark narrowly ahead of Team Japan.

But the Japanese team rallied back and slingshot past their rivals after a superbly executed manoeuvre from Barker heading into the third leg to gain an advantage they would not relinquish.

“It was tight racing in both with two very close starts,” Outteridge added. “We’ll have to review the racing and we were unhappy with some of our moments where we can definitely do better.”