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Teenager Bernard Tomic led Australia to a commanding 2-0 lead over Taiwan in their Asia/Oceania Group I Davis Cup tie in Melbourne on Friday.

The 17-year-old, Australia’s youngest Davis Cup player in 77 years, crushed Taiwan’s Yang Tsung-hua, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 in the opening singles rubber.

Australia’s nominated No. 1 player Peter Luczak built on Tomic’s winning start to down Yi Chu-huan, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 and put the hosts 2-0 up heading into Saturday’s pivotal doubles.

Carsten Ball and Paul Hanley will team up for the doubles against Yang and Yi.

Non-playing captain John Fitzgerald continually urged Tomic to maintain his focus as the teenager reeled off an accomplished straight sets victory on his Davis Cup debut.

“That was the first time and I handled it quite well. I really liked Fitzy giving me the advice, which worked out well,” Tomic said.

“I think we executed our decisions really well today. He said a few things and I did them really well, it pleased him and it pleased me. I couldn’t be much happier. Yang’s always played well against me and I’ve had a lot of three-setters with him so today to win in three and to win it quite comfortably was good.”

Fitzgerald, who has been in charge of Australia’s Davis Cup team since 2001, was impressed with Tomic’s performance.

“He hardly missed a beat and gee, he timed the ball well,” Fitzgerald said.

“He’s a good player. He was a little nervy as you would expect in the first set and then he just loosened up after that and showed us what he can do.”

Luczak is Australia’s top-ranked player here this weekend after Lleyton Hewitt’s recent right hip surgery.

Taiwan is also without their top-ranked player Lu Yen-hsun, who decided to pass on the tournament so that younger teammates could have an opportunity to play. AFP