Captain John Lloyd believes Great Britain had a "good day," as their Davis Cup clash against Lithuania is poised at 1-1 after day one.
The GB team are looking to get out of Europe/Africa Zone Group II but travelled to Vilnius without British number one Andy Murray, who sat out the tie to give others a chance to gain experience on the big stage and himself a chance to focus on winning a Grand Slam.
James Ward took full advantage of Murray's absence, with a straight sets victory over Laurynas Grigelis in the opening rubber.
His 6-4 6-2 6-4 success gave the Brits the perfect start but Dan Evans could not make it two wins from two matches as he went down in five sets to Ricardas Berankis.
Evans refused to give in against a man ranked 52 places above him but eventually succumbed 6-1 4-6 7-6 3-6 6-3 to leave the tie all-square going into Saturday's doubles.
Despite Evans' defeat, Lloyd was delighted with the way his men performed on the opening day.
"I think it was a good today," he told BBC Radio 5 live. "It could even have been better with Dan Evans coming so close but it showed a lot of things today. "
James knew that if he lost his match, the chances were we'd be down 2-0, so it was almost all on him and he came through very, very well.
"Dan was down a set, was getting absolutely blitzed and could easily have panicked but he dug in and played a fabulous match. So for me it was a good day, I learned a lot about their characters."
Ken Skupski and Colin Fleming will team-up for the doubles on Saturday, with GB looking to secure their first Davis Cup win since September 2007.