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Indonesia’s women’s tennis team got off to a rough start in the Fed Cup on Wednesday, falling 3-0 to Thailand at Shenzhen Luohu Tennis Center in southern China’s Guangdong province.

Competing in the Asia/Oceania Zone’s Group I qualifying round, Indonesia’s first singles player Jessy Rompies lost 7-6 (4), 6-1 to Thailand’s Noppawan Lertcheewakarn. Tamarine Tanasugarn secured her country’s victory with 6-2, 6-1 defeat of Ayu Fani Damayanti.

Varatchaya Wongteanchai and Nungnadda Wannasuk made it a clean sweep for Thailand by beating Ayu and Jessy 6-3, 7-5 in the doubles event.

In the Pool B’s other game, Kazakhstan beat South Korea 3-0.

Meanwhile, Taiwan opened its Pool A campaign with 3-0 defeat of Uzbekistan.

The Asia/Oceania Zone Group I splits eight teams into two pools. Each pool’s top finisher will face off on Saturday to decide which country advances to the World Group II playoffs in April. The bottom finishers will meet to avoid relegation to Group II.

Indonesia’s loss hampered its chances of breaking into the World Group again for the first time since 2004. It also marked a failure to avenge a loss to Thailand in the 2011 Southeast Asian Games final in Palembang, South Sumatra, in November.

“Thailand was still better than us. They have better-ranked players,” said Ferry Raturandang, an Indonesian Tennis Association (Pelti) official.

Ferry said he thought the team would come back strongly in its next contest to a avoid finishing at the bottom of its pool.

“We’re still optimistic that the team will win the next two games and we’ll fight to at least stay in Group I,” he said.

Indonesia will play against Kazakhstan today while closing the group stage against South Korea on Friday.

The country’s best Fed Cup performance came in 1991, when the team lost 2-0 to Spain in the quarterfinals.