Alex Bogdanovic's wretched Davis Cup record continued in the deciding rubber with a 2-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 loss to Austrian No.2 Alex Peya to hand Austria a 3-2 victory over Great Britain who are now relegated from the World group.

With Andy Murray winning both his singles matches, but crucially left out of the doubles yesterday, it fell to Bogdanovic who prior to this match was 0-4 in live Davis Cup matches, to seal victory for the home side. However, although the British No.2 got off to a very good start, as was the case in his match against Jurgen Melzer, he was unable to sustain a high level of play and capitulated lamely in the end.

Bogdanovic, looking assured off the ground and lethal particularly on the backhand wing which he used effectively to execute passing shots almost at will, took the opening set 6-2 after breaking Peya in the fourth and eighth games.

Slowly but surely Peya picked up his game and he broke in the sixth game of the second set, but Bogdanovic broke back for 4-4 and then promptly lost his serve again as Peya converted with a backhand passing shot rifled down the line. From there the Austrian was able to sustain his momentum for the rest of the match as Bogdanovic's game went south.

Having closed out the second set on serve, the lanky right-hander broke Bogdanovic at the start of the third set and maintained his break advantage for a two sets to one lead.

The fourth set was a blur as Peya broke the wilting British No.2 three times in total to coast to a comfortable four set victory and seal the win for Austria.

The jubilant Austrian team celebrated with much dancing, bum wiggling and arm waving as a dejected Bogdanovic made his exit.

"After the end of the second set I felt much stronger than him", Peya said. "He was going down and I was going up and up. I started off bad and at the beginning of the second set he had his chances, but I was trying to stay in there.

"He was serving a high percentage, something like 90% and I felt like I had no chance and the pressure was all on my side. I was fighting and hanging in there in the second set and once I won that set I felt like I was on top of him. Everything became a little easier for me and it was tough for him in the end."

British captain John Lloyd who now faces the prospect of dragging the team out of the Euro/Africa zone indicated that with the benefit of hindsight he would certainly like to turn the clock back and play Andy Murray in the crucial doubles.

"If you lose you'd like to have another go with changing it around obviously", Lloyd said. "Would Andy have played as well today and would the outcome have been any different? I certainly think that if Andy had played in the doubles it would have been a closer match. Predicting that they would win the way that that team played? I'm not so sure about that. I'd like another go at it, but it was my decision. You make decisions, sometimes you're right and other times you're wrong. That's for you to judge."

Bogdanovic who revealed that he was affected by an injury sustained during his previous match said:  "I struggled a little bit with my movement today. I hurt my hamstring during the Melzer match and that obviously wasn't helping. After the first set he was bringing me forward on the short balls and I was a couple of steps too slow."

A disappointed Andy Murray who left the court at the end of the second set with his brother Jamie said: "Everyone predicted that it was going to go down to the fifth match. The Austrian's played great. Alex was in a position to win this tie and at 4-4 in the second set that's when you have to go on and finish him off because Peya was starting to struggle a little bit."

Andre Jones

Wimbledon