Matteo Berrettini is the new kid on the block.

The 22-year-old Davis Cup debutant — the youngest member of the visiting team — is currently the fourth-ranked Italian behind Fabio Fognini, Marco Cecchinato and Andreas Seppi.

On Friday, the six-feet-five-inch world No. 53 showed glimpses of why he is held in such high esteem. Berrettini took just 57 minutes to wipe out India’s best bet in singles, Prajnesh Gunneswaran, 6-4, 6-3 in the second rubber to give the visitors a 2-0 lead on the opening day of the World Group Qualifiers.

This was after Andreas Seppi had outplayed Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-4, 6-2.

An unfamiliar surface, a revamped best-of-three format and exuberance of the home crowd were considered to be the key behind India’s ability to upset the odds in the two-day affair. If emotions tried to rule over logic, they were grinded to the South Club dust an hour after noon.

Mahesh Bhupathi will now have to depend on the Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan magic, and then hope for a miracle to take them through to the Group Finals.

“The focus is on tomorrow. We know we have a job at hand. It will be a lot harder… No time to give up now,” Bhupathi said.

Drawing inspiration from a similar situation last year against China, when they won 3-2, the non-playing captain said: “The Italians are so much more experienced. If you take your chances, you get rewarded. “We understand the pressure of playing for the country. Strange things happen… It has happened in China. I know Italians are stronger than the Chinese, but we will take one match at a time.”

Quite a few eyebrows were raised when Berrettini was preferred over Cecchinato, a French Open semi-finalist last year, in the singles and he showed why such faith wasn’t misplaced. The strongly-built Berrettini’s feeble backhand is often considered a handicap, but his serve and forehand often outweigh his weakness. He broke Prajnesh in the first game of the first set and never looked back.

Serving consistently at over 200kmph, the aggressive Berrettini never gave Prajnesh a chance as he pinned him in the backyard with a superb exhibition of volleys and groundstrokes.

Prajnesh tried to stay in sight of Berrettini as he improved on his serve and stretched the Italian to all corners of the court. Both players held their serves until the Italian sealed the issue in the 10th game without a dropping a point.

Berrettini began the second set in similar fashion as in the first, breaking Prajnesh in the opening game. The Indian No.1 never came close to breaking his opponent as he crumbled under pressure. He saved two break points in the seventh game, but couldn’t avert another break two games later.

The left-hander hit a forehand right into the middle of the net to concede the match.

Prajnesh admitted the Italian proved to be too strong. “He is a very good first-strike player… Big serve, big forehand and he used them to his advantage... I feel I needed to put more balls in play, start the rallies… I would have more of an advantage then… I just didn’t do enough for that to happen,” he conceded.

Ramkumar, on the other hand, flattered to deceive in the opening rubber. He came close to breaking his opponent in the second game, but Seppi forced Ramkumar into an error. The Italian struggled to deal with Ramkumar’s serve, especially on the backhand, as the Indian served two aces in the seventh game.

In the next game, Seppi saved another break point and closed it out with an ace. The Italian seemed to be struggling with the pace and bounce on grass.

But double faults on serves let Ramkumar down as Seppi him broke in the ninth game with a cross-court backhand and held serve in the next to wrap up the opening set. The second set turned out to be a formality as the Italian shifted gears and broke Ramkumar twice.

As the Italian grew in confidence with every passing game, Ramkumar was forced into making errors.