Beijing, China, 9 July 2011 | Tennis Australia

Australia will wait until tomorrow morning to finalise their Davis Cup reverse singles line up after taking a 2-1 advantage against China in Beijing this afternoon.

Lleyton Hewitt and Chris Guccione turned on a near faultless display to defeat Li Zhe and Gong Xao Ming 6-4 6-4 6-4 before 2500 fans at the Beijing International Tennis Centre.

The Australians need to win one of the tomorrow’s two singles rubbers to clinch a spot in the World Group Playoff in September.

“We will wait and see how Lleyton feels tomorrow,” was Australian captain Pat Rafter’s assessment. “He has had his problems with his feet and we have to see how he feels the next day. Sometimes he is good sometimes he is not, so we will have to wait and see.”

Hewitt certainly showed excellent form in the doubles with some sizzling returns and an imposing all-court presence. Guccione also produced some quality groundstrokes and proved unbreakable, serving out all three sets.

“I thought we came out and played well right from the start, we took it to them, we had a very good game plan, Chris and I play extremely well together and we have a lot of confidence in each other, we were pretty happy with the way we went today, our intensity was fantastic…Chris and I had to play a very clean and smart match to win today which we did,” was Hewitt’s appraisal.

Guccione’s:  “We played our game which we knew we had to do. We knew they played a lot together so we knew they would move a lot up to the net. We needed to return well which Lleyton always does and it was good for me to get a bit of confidence up.”

Ze Zheng and Wu Di are expected to each play singles tomorrow for China. If Australia stays with its original line up Ze will play Marinko Matosevic first followed by the Wu-Bernard Tomic match. Play starts 10 am local time, 12 pm AEST.