As Irina-Camelia Begu delivered the service winner that secured Romania’s victory, the lack of a handshake between the two teams demonstrated the extent to which Ilie Nastase had poisoned the atmosphere of this whole tie.

The British contingent will leave Constanta today feeling bruised and frustrated. Having absorbed Nastase’s horrible abuse on Saturday, they would have wanted to make this trip worthwhile by snatching an upset victory over their hosts.

Instead it was the Romanians who were galvanised by the first day’s drama. Their players acknowledged that Nastase deserves punishment if he is found to have called Anne Keothavong and Johanna Konta “----ing b-----s”, as reported in the Sunday Telegraph. But they also found a common grievance in the way events unfolded from there.

The issue was the way that Konta dissolved into tears one game after Nastase had been ejected from the court, having just dropped her serve. The Romanians believe that Konta – who then left the court for a 20-minute break – was taking advantage of the situation for her own ends. What’s more, they rejected her claim that she had been subjected to aggressive and threatening comments from the crowd.

“Yes, I had extra motivation,” said Simona Halep, after she had used her sense of injustice to fuel a superb 6-1, 6-3 victory over Konta in yesterday’s opening match. “In my opinion the public was very fair yesterday, they didn’t say anything bad, they just were supporting us.”