Roger Federer repeated his Wimbledon final mastery over Mark Philippoussis to put Switzerland level in Melbourne with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) win.

Earlier, Michel Kratochvil was thumped by former world number one Lleyton Hewitt in the opening rubber with Hewitt improving his Davis Cup singles record to 21-5 with his two-hour 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 victory over the 129th-ranked Swiss.

It was Federer's 10th straight Davis cup singles win and 30 unbeaten sets stretching back to April 2001 for Switzerland as they chase their first-ever Davis Cup crown.

The winner of the tie has a home final against either Spain or Argentina on November 28-30.

Federer's class prevailed with two mini-breaks to hold three match points and he clinched it on his first with an ace.

"He was a little down early in the third set but he came back and I had to give it everything to come back in the third, who knows what would happen if it went four or five sets," said Federer.

Philippoussis said: "He just played too good for me. I had a slow start, I had my chances, but he played the bigger points a lot more solid than me, any chance I had he came out with a big serve on a big point."

On the Malaga clay, meanwhile, French Open champion Ferrero, currently top of the world rankings, blitzed Argentina's Gaston Gaudio 6-4, 6-0, 6-0 before 1998 French Open champion Moya took advantage of an ailing Mariano Zabaleta, overcoming a two-set deficit to win 5-7, 2-6, 6-2, 6-0, 6-1 in just over three hours.

Zabaleta was suffering from the third set and at 2-2, he had to call the trainer to massage his aching thighs.

Argentina went into the tie without their two top players David Nalbandian and Guillermo Coria who were both injured.

Among the play-offs US Open champion Andy Roddick crashed to an embarrassing defeat to Dominik Hrbaty as Slovakia gained an early edge in Bratislava.

Hrbaty won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to register his first ever win over the American but Mardy Fish came to the rescue as he fought back from a set down to level the tie at 1-1 when he defeated veteran Karol Kucera 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, 6-1.

Roddick's defeat broke his 19-match winning streak, although all of those wins had come on hard courts while the American struggled on the clay of the Slovakian capital.

"This surface is rather slow," said Roddick. "The balls kept fairly low and I didn't know how to adapt."

Fish too seemed to be heading for defeat when he trailed 6-4, 5-5 to Kucera.