On the brink of a shock first-round loss after Day 2, defending Davis Cup champion Australia rallies to trump a plucky Switzerland in Zurich. LINDA PEARCE reports.

At last, it was won Australia had staggered into the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup with a tense and unconvincing 3-2 defeat of Switzerland. Later, in the interview room, captain John Newcombe insisted he had remained calm throughout the two sudden-death reverse singles. If so, he was in the minority; the team joke that the result was "never in doubt"' was a supremely ironic one.

There was doubt all right. Plenty of it. Right from the moment Mark Philippoussis dropped the second singles rubber to young Swiss Roger Federer to balance Lleyton Hewitt's win in the opening match, the supposed stroll in the park for the defending champion became more like a torturous hike in the Alps.

By the time the doubles had been dropped, experimental pair Wayne Arthurs and Sandon Stolle losing in four sets to Federer and surprise star Lorenzo Manta,

Australia was faced with recovering from a 1-2 deficit on the final day at Zurich's 2233-seat Saalsportshalle, which even managed a Sunday sellout after previously disappointing attendances

Not for 15 years, since the 1985~ home quarter final against Paraguay, had such a comeback been achieved by an Australian team. In Patrick Rafter's continued absence fromthe squad that won last year's final in Nice without him, but whose spirit he has helped to build, Hewitt and Philippoussis ensured that the feat was repeated in 2000.

Hewitt, a four-set winner over George Bastl to earn Australia a 1 0 lead two days earlier, again had the task of leading-off, but this time against Federer, his fellow 18-year-old, opposite No.1 and one-time doubles partner Talent, long hair Hewitt favors a ponytail under his reversed baseball cap, while Federer subscribes to the Ivanisevic school of ridiculous topknots and rising-star status are not all the young pair shares.

Federer's coach, South Australian Peter Carter, was spending the first-round weekend in Adelaide as groomsman at the wedding of Hewitt's coach Darren Cahill.

Hewitt's original mentor, Peter Smith, coached Carter during his playing years. Hewitt and Federer were also junior rivals, although in 1998 when the Swiss won junior Wimbledon and claimed the No.1 boys' ranking, Hewitt had already set out full time on the senior circuit with a first Australian hardcourt championship tucked away in his raequet bag. This time, Hewitt, ranked 44 places higher at

No.17, started more brightly. Four service breaks dotted the first seven service games, but Hewitt grabbed three of them closing out the set 6-2. Then Federer settled in, and for the next two sets the stronger Swiss made most of the running.

It was all Hewitt could do to stick with him, but hanging in and making his opponent play the extra shot is one of the South Australian's trademarks. Eventually his chance came. The fourth set tiebreak was crucial, Hewitt taking a lucky net cord for 4-2, drawing two forehand errors and then forcing a backhand mistake on the first of his four set points. Federer's spirit was finally broken, after three demanding days, and he failed to hold any of his four service games in the fourth set. Australia was still in the Tie.

Considering the circumstances, Hewitt rated it as probably his biggest win. "Now I feel like a better player because I have been under that pressure and come through," he said after prevailing 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7 2), 6-1 in two hours, 37 min-

utes, his 15th win from 16 matches to start 2000. "It's nice knowing that if I do go into these situations again I've been through it and I've done it and I know what preparation to take for next time, as well."

Philippoussis may have had similar sentiments, but relief was the Victorian's overwhelming emotion. He had suffered from diarrhoea from the day before the tie began, but the 75th ranked Bastl ensured his Top 20 opponent would have the Sunday runs of a different kind, Philippoussis looked sluggish and struggled on serve for much of the match, yet somehow managed to find what was needed just when it was required. "What Mark did was the (sign) of a class player," Newcombe said. "When the going got tough there right at the end he played his best tennis in the fourth and fifth sets. That's what it's all about. So I call it a classic Davis Cup encounter, rather than a great match."

Still, had Australia lost, much of the blame would have been laid at the Philippoussis door. Not just for what would have been a disastrous effort against the 24 year-old Bastl, but for losing a could-have-won encounter with Federer 6-4, 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 6-4 on the opening day after Hewitt had squeezed out a 4-6, 6 3, 6-2, 6-4 result against the Swiss No.2. Philippoussis had been an uncertain starter for Zurich throughout most of January, refusing to commit after losing to Andre Agassi in the fourth round at the Australian Open, only to be announced as a team member by Newcombe the following day after talks involving his management company, Octagon, and father, Nick, a spectator throughout the three days in Zurich. Nick Philippoussis must have spent plenty of his Swiss time wondering whether the decision he had pushed for had been the wise one. Much of the goodwill built during his son's return to the team last year would have dissipated had he left Switzerland without a singles point against opponents whose careers that have either been short (Federer) or largely undistinguished (Bastl).

"When Mark served for the second set he said `If I lose this set I'm selling all my Ferraris and motor bikes and everything,' Newcombe revealed later Philippoussis had failed to serve out the first at 5 3 and went on to lose it in a tiebreak. "It's amazing what fear can do, isn't it?" Philippoussis' concern was that he would feel as he had on Friday, when the Swiss drew back to 1-1. "After the first day I knew how that felt and I didn't want to feel it again," he said.

"After the doubles they were jumping up and down and me and Lleyton looked at that and we got pumped from it. They thought they had it won."

Still, the doubles dilemma in the wake of Mark Woodforde's Cup retirement is no closer to being resolved. Stolle is now 0-3 in the past 12 months and Newcombe's process of trial and error in the post Woodies era may next involve Arthurs and Rafter, who made their tournament debut at the adidas International.

Stolle cut an understandably disconsolate figure after the 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7 6 (7-4) loss to the scratch Federer-Manta combination, the former filling in for

Swiss No.1 Marc Rosset, absent due to a dispute with new captain Jakob Hlasek, his former doubles partner, and the latter standing tall when his more seasoned opponents expected him to crumble. "I'm shattered, that's basically all I can say," Stolle said. "My Davis Cup experiences have been three losses now, so I don't know what it feels like to win. This one especially I felt like there was no way I should, we should, lose it."

The fact that they did left Australia needing to clamber back from the brink. Only four times since 1972 had a defending champion been knocked out in the first round. The last was France, beaten in 1997 by Australia at White City in a Tie that featured Rafter's tamous "war of attrition"' against Cedric Pioline that set up the 4-1 result and also launched an individual career that has scaled dual US Open and No.1 ranking heights. Philippoussis had said after December's heroics that he thought the Nice performance would launch his career. Yet this one almost brought a premature World Group end to the joint captaincy-coaching careers of Newcombe and Tony Roche, who had previously announced that this year, their seventh in charge, would be their last.

"For me there were so many things to win for out there and the main one is probably Newk and Roche, in their last year, it would have been a shocking way to go out," said Hewitt, who added that Newcomhe had endured "a very tough and stressful weekend". The captain himself admitted that during the five set fifth match he was "thinking about where I was going to enjoy my pasture. I was going to be put out to pasture".

Never in doubt? Not quite. Better, instead, to say that this was a result Australia achieved the hard way. "You've got to hand it to the Swiss guys, they played at their absolute maximum for the entire weekend,"' Newcombe said. "They were the under-dogs and they took us right down to the wire; they deserve a lot of credit.

"It was a long day. A long weekend."