Australia opened up a commanding 2-0 lead over Taiwan on the first day of their Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group One play-off in Kaohsiung.

World No.22 Lleyton Hewitt cruised to a 6-4 6-0 6-3 victory over Ti Chen, an opponent ranked 248 places lower, in the opening singles rubber.

Big-serving Chris Guccione then came out and made it a perfect start for the Aussies, though he had to work for it, eventually seeing off Taiwan's No.1 Yen-Hsun Lu 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 7-6 (11-9).

Ranked 86, 22 places above his opponent, Guccione staved off a set point in the third set with a big kicking second serve.

The two wins moved Australia into complete control of the tie heading into Saturday's doubles rubber, where Hewitt will team up with Paul Hanley against Yen-Hsun Lu and Yeu-Tzuoo Wang.

Hewitt overcame some early and late resistance from Chen to give Australia the early lead, improving his overall Davis Cup singles record to 31-8.

The former world No.1 took control late in the first set after Chen had made a competitive start, but the local hope lost 10 straight games as Hewitt surged to a 3-0 advantage in the third.

Chen rallied briefly to trail Hewitt 3-4 on serve but the Australian quickly re-asserted his supremacy by breaking again and closing out the match.

Hewitt said he hadn't known much about his opponent and early in the game found it tougher to hold his own serve than break Chen's.

"He's got nothing to lose out there, he was just going for his shots and some of them were coming off," Hewitt said.

"He served well on some points as well and then I got on top of him and I felt like I could dictate play and do what I wanted to do out there."

The 26-year-old said playing in the tie had obviously been one of the bigger sacrifices he had made but stressed he owed a lot to the Davis Cup.

"It's easy to get up for big Davis Cup matches when you are playing at home in front of 15,000 people or playing finals and semi-finals," Hewitt said.

"These are the tough ones to obviously get motivated for, but for me growing up in Australian tennis gave me an opportunity to play Davis Cup.

"When I was 15 under John Newcombe and Tony Roche, I got to go to a Davis Cup tie and then played when I was 19 and we won that year in 1999, so I owe a lot to Davis Cup I think, and especially playing for Australia.

"There is no greater honour in Australian tennis than putting on this gold jacket and representing our country, for me it means an awful lot, hopefully we can get back in the World Group."

Relegated from the World Group for just the second time, Australia must win this tie to advance to a second-round Asia-Oceania play-off against either Thailand or Kazakhstan in Townsville in April.

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