Jurgen Melzer and Julian Knowles outclassed the British pairing of Jamie Murray and Ross Hutchins 6-4 6-3 6-1 to give Austria a crucial 2-1 lead in the world group qualifying tie here at Wimbledon.

Andy Murray must now beat the Austrian No.1 Melzer in the first of the reverse singles tomorrow and then hope that team mate Alex Bogdanovic, whose Davis Cup record leaves a lot to be desired, can deliver the goods against Alex Peya.

Captain John Lloyd stuck with his original choice of pairing the older Murray with Hutchins rather than play the Murray brothers together, a decision that he may come to regret given the trouncing that the British pairing received from their more experienced opponents. Lloyd revealed that he had chosen not to play Andy because of a strained abductor that the British No.1 is carrying as a result of changing surfaces.

"He was available to play", Lloyd confessed. "I had to weigh things up in view of the niggly injury and I made the decision to rest him."

Lloyd's decision to rest Andy may backfire, but the British captain was bullish in defence all the same.

"To be honest, looking at their team and the way they played today, I don't care who might have come against them, I thought they were boody good", Lloyd continued. "Obviously playing Andy today would have brought something different to the table, but he would have had to have played bloody well today at his absolute best with Ross or Jamie, and it would have been a rough match to be honest, so I'm fine with it."

After early breaks were exchanged, the Austrian's got the crucial break in the seventh game of the opening set and closed it out on serve minutes later to love.

A backhand return winner from Melzer gave the Austrian's a break right at the start of the second set to the delight of a small group of Austrian fans who, draped in the national flag cheered raucously behind the umpire's chair.

From there the Austrian's were in cruise control as they accelerated to 4-0 with a second break to silence the predominantly British crowd on court 1.

Although Melzer dropped his serve when trying to close out the set at 5-2, the Austrian's managed to clinch a two sets to love lead by breaking the hapless Hutchins in the next game on the seventh set point.

The Austrian's strolled to a straight sets victory with two breaks in the third set, Melzer closing out the match to love on serve with a simple forehand volley winner into the open court.

A dissapointed Jamie Murray acknowlegded that the Austrian pair were simply too strong on the day.

"They played a great match from start to finish, especially on return of serve", Murray said. "I certainly didn't play anywhere near the level I can play and that obviously didn't help our chances. We gave away our serves at the start of each set and never gave ourselves the chance to get into it."

The Austrian pair who were expecting to play against the Murray brothers confessed to having an easier day at the office than expected which can only help Melzer's cause in his match against Andy Murray tomorrow.

"It's great for Jurgen that he didn't lose too much energy for the match tomorrow", Knowles said. "We were returning much better than them; all in all we were a little bit better in just about everything."

Melzer who had declared himself to be fitter than his vanquished opponent Alex Bogdanovic yesterday, is quite happy to put himself on the line for three matches.

"Being 2-1 and coming into sunday is great", Melzer said. "Of course I'm going to be more tired than if I hadn't played doubles, but still I think it's more important to be 2-1 up. I'm fit, but even if I'm tired I'm going to give my best tomorrow."

Andre Jones

Wimbledon