The second match was no contest, the first should have been more of a contest and, as a result, Great Britain know that two wins from the remaining three on offer in their Davis Cup World Group relegation play-off against Austria and Andy Murray will be rubbing shoulders more often next year with the kind of player in whose company he is entirely at ease.

For that to happen he needs help and one wonders, after a day that ended as predictably as the players' competition records suggested, where that will come from. Should Britain win today's doubles and Murray withstands the vigour of Jürgen Melzer's challenge in the first reverse singles on Sunday, Alex Bogdanovic's heart-rate will tumble appreciably.

However, Austrian success today - and their team of Melzer and Julien Knowle is handy - will mean Britain having to win both singles matches tomorrow and that is where the trouble may start. Bogdanovic played scintillating tennis for a set and three quarters against Melzer in the opening rubber yesterday, but when two opportunities to lead 5-1 in the second set slid by, his resistance possessed the thickness of unleavened bread.

By the time he trailed by two sets to one, the stadium emptied, the tables in the All England Club's promenades overflowed and Helen Browning's Organic Farmhouse Grill was doing a roaring trade. The diners began to return to their seats inside the court only once news of Bogdanovic's 3-6, 7-6, 6-2, 6-1 defeat spread, because it was time to see Murray strut his stuff against Alexander Peya. And he did not let his people down.

Murray won 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and 47 minutes and ended the match clasping his throat with his right hand, a pointed gesture after Melzer - to whom he was within two points of defeat in the third round of the US Open - had said that the world No4 might feel the pressure given his new status and the onus on him to succeed here. From the moment he entered the arena to firecrackers, Murray looked like someone whose previous walk-on was for a grand-slam final.

He crunched the ball with a devastating, cocksure command. It must have been especially galling for Peya, in his first service game, to be broken with Murray shouting “Yeah” before the ball had landed exactly where the British No1 had aimed it. But that is the attitude that has carried Murray to his present status. He did not relent, either, though there were times when his tendency to use the drop shot to emphasise the certainty of his play came a cropper. Everything else about him was sublime and he made Peya pay for his compatriot's suggestion that he might find this tie a trial.

It will certainly become one today if Britain cannot conjure a doubles victory. John Lloyd, the Britain captain, has up until one hour before the match to change his initial pick of Jamie Murray and Ross Hutchins. Chances are that Andy Murray will want to play - he did not break much of a sweat yesterday - but with whom? Andy has gone out of his way to say that he and Jamie are back on speaking terms after a couple of up-and-downers this year and what better place to defy the Brothers Grimm connotations than on Wimbledon's grass today?

The surface should have been the one upon which Bogdanovic ended his miserable record in this competition - now five live rubbers and five defeats. For long spells there did not seem to be 121 ranking spots between the two and after Bogdanovic saved five break points in his opening service game, he struck the ball fluently and with such confidence that Melzer was often reduced to bouncing his racket and throwing disgusted looks at Gilbert Schaller, his captain, as if to say “you told me this was going to be easy”. Eventually, as one suspected all along, that was how it became.