Bermuda’s first Junior Davis Cup team for six years performed with credit on the opening day in Guatemala.

The team made up of Vinny Boisvert, Zach Maguire and Sebastian Pukk were defeated 2-1 by the Dominican Republic in their opening match of Group E, which also features Curacao and Costa Rica.

With Maguire losing 6-0, 6-1 in the opening rubber to Alvara Perez in just over an hour, Bermuda were up against it early but Vinny Boisvert managed to pull the teams level in the second match when his opponent Khalia Acra was forced to withdraw through injury midway through the deciding set.

Boisvert and Maguire then teamed up in the doubles against Acra, who had made a remarkable recovery from his previous match, and Julio Troncoso with the Bermudian team losing 6-1, 6-4.

Coach Steve Bean was pleased with the performance and felt his side were unlucky to come away with the loss

“Dominican Republic are probably the best in our group,” he said.

“Our first match featured Zach Maguire. He lost one and love but the score was not a true reflection. He was right in the match. Everybody else was finished and these guys were still playing and that indicates how tight it was. Many games were close.

“Vinny lost the first set 6-3, won the second 6-4 and was up 2-1 in the third and the guy started cramping up and complaining that his ankle was hurting him so he retired but credit to Vinny for changing up his game.

“He came out in the first set, overplaying a it and being a bit too aggressive. He changed his strategy in the second set and just started to try to get more balls in play and the other guy made errors, got mad at himself and even his coach started complaining. Vinny hung in there and was smart in his shot selection.

With the match in the balance at 1-1, Bean was disappointed that the doubles team did not take their chances, notably in the second set.

“The other team started real quick in the first set and were playing out of their minds with big serving and big returning,” Bean said.

“It was 6-1 in the first set and there was nothing we could really do about that but the second set, we started to settle, making returns, poaching on the net a little more, moving aroun,d and before you know it, it was 4-4 in the second set.

“We had our chances to go 5-4 in front but we were not able to. I was happy with the performance, I thought it was an excellent result against a team who are known to be one of the best nations in the Junior category.”

Bermuda take on Costa Rica in their second group match on Tuesday.