Hearts' Premiership struggles continued, as they began their post-split games with a 1-0 defeat to Dundee at Tynecastle.
Simon Murray's first half strike was enough to separate the sides, who sit seventh in the standings with four games to go.
Neil Critchley made three changes to the side that exited the Scottish Cup at Hampden last weekend; with Lawrence Shankland missing out via injury and James Wilson serving the final match of his two-game suspension.
Elton Kabangu would cleave out the first real chance after 17 minutes; courtesy of a nice ball from Jamie McCart which the Belgian forward sidefooted across goal and just past the post.
Hearts didn't make it easy on themselves, and Ryan Astley was able to breeze through the defence and send a deflected strike towards goal, looping over Craig Gordon and out of play.
The Jambos went close again; another good ball forward from McCart this time picked out Jorge Grant, whose flicked effort towards goal was palmed away by Trevor Carson before Grant went wide at the second time of asking.
Moments later, Dundee went close. Good running down the right from Josh Mulligan preceded a searching cross from deep, with Seb Palmer-Houlden not quite able to get the right connection to it.
A glorious chance went astray for Hearts just a minute later. Cammy Devlin's low strike clipped back into danger off the post, with Trevor Carson making a good save to deny Jorge Grant on the rebound.
It was even stevens, but Dundee took the lead after 38 minutes. A poor clearance saw the ball fall the way of Simon Murray in a packed goalmouth, with the forward steering the ball into the bottom left corner beyond Gordon.
Hearts missed a chance to get even right before the break, with Kabangu sending a low cross from Penrice into the gloves of Carson from close range.
HT: Heart of Midlothian 0-1 Dundee
The second half saw little action, with only a few chances of note.
Musa headed wide from an Adam Forrester cross before Cammy Devlin dragged a shot wide after Forrester did well again to keep an initial cross from James Penrice alive.
After much huffing and puffing, Alan Forrest had the ball in the net but VAR chopped it off for a foul in the build up.
Hearts: Gordon, Kent, Baningime (Musa 46'), Grant, Devlin, Spittal (Dhanda 77'), Kabangu (Forrest 90'), Kartum (Vargas 63'), Penrice, McCart (Kingsley 46'), Forrester
Subs: Fulton, Kingsley, Halkett, Nieuwenhof, Steinwender, Forrest, Dhanda, Musa, Vargas
Dundee: Carson, Robertson, Astley (Ingram 90'), Shaugnessy, Tiffoney, Mulligan, Cameron, Murray, Larkeche (Samuels 80'), Palmer-Houlden (Robertson 63'), Portales (Fraser 90')
Subs: McCracken, Ingram, Hines-Samuel, Reilly, Robertson, Koumetio, Fraser, Sylla, Donnellu
