Late substitution Lleyton Hewitt secured Australias passage to the Davis Cup tennis World Group play-offs on Sunday, coming off the bench to give his country a 3-1 win over China in the Asia-Oceania second round tie in Beijing.

Hewitt, who was originally listed to play only Saturday’s doubles, replaced Cup debutant Marinko Matosevic for the first of Sunday’s reverse singles.

The 30-year-old South Australian fully justified the faith of team captain Pat Rafter, beating 382nd ranked Zhang Ze 6-2 6-1 4-6 7-6 (7-2) to record his 37th win in 46 Cup singles rubbers.

The teams then decided not to contest the second reverse singles match.

The 173rd ranked Hewitt achieved three of the four service breaks in the first set.

Zhang then dropped his first two service games of the second set and Hewitt broke again in the seventh game.

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