Even as the Australian contingent were still coming to terms with news of Nick Kyrgios' late eve-of-tournament withdrawal, the Wimbledon men's doubles champion Purcell was swiftly blown away on No.3 court by No.7 seed Andrey Rublev on Monday.
Purcell had talked up his chances of an upset, adamant that he wasn't here to "make up the numbers", but apart from one purple patch at the start of the second set, he was outplayed by the Russian 6-3 7-5 6-4 in just over an hour and a half.
"I was as ready as I could be, but I guess it wasn't enough with the amount of tennis I'd had on the grass," Purcell, who was still carrying an ankle injury that he suffered in a match in Korea in April and which also left him struggling in the French Open, told AAP.
"Going into my favourite grand slam, I wasn't as ready as I wanted to be. I've got myself into the top-100 and the whole reason to do that is to get into the slams and go deep, so it's a little bit gutting not to be able to give it a proper, full 100 per cent swing."
In an extraordinary turnaround as Purcell, the Australian No.3, led 5-2 in the second set and looked poised to level the match, the Sydneysider then lost the plot, surrendering six games in a row in a sequence that included losing 19 consecutive points.
The transformation had been striking as the 25-year-old Purcell had played some brilliant tennis in the second set, upping his level with some excellent slicing and dicing, incisive volleying and the odd lovely lob.
He even threw in an underarm serve - rather unsuccessfully - as the variety in his game seemed to rattle Rublev, who started chuntering to himself unhappily.
But when the game was played on the Russian's terms from the backcourt, his power and accuracy always had Purcell on the backfoot.
Purcell, who won the men's doubles with Matt Ebden last year, will now turn his attentions to that event, playing alongside Jordan Thompson, who was also in singles action on Monday.
"This is why I like playing doubles. You can go out there as singles being your priority number one, and if that doesn't go to plan, then you've still got a few matches to enjoy yourself over the week."
Like the rest of the Australian contingent, Purcell was sad to hear the news of 2022 finalist Kyrgios' withdrawal on Sunday with a wrist injury.
"Nick had a big chance of going deep in this tournament, let's hope he gets better," said Purcell.
"Because with his knee injury before and now his wrist, we don't want anything else to happen before he heads to America for the US swing."
The Wimbledon referee's office had earlier confirmed that Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis, the 2022 Australian Open doubles champions, had officially withdrawn from the men's doubles.
As Kokkinakis had also failed to make it through the singles qualifiers, his mate's injury has effectively ended his tournament.
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