Britain face the toughest of tasks to retain their status in the tennis elite after Jamie Murray and Ross Hutchins were demolished by Austria in the doubles.

The Britons were handed a lesson in doubles tennis by Jurgen Melzer and Julian Knowle who wrapped up a 6-4 6-3 6-1 victory to leave Austria with a 2-1 lead going into tomorrow's reverse singles.

With the tie poised at 1-1 after the first day British captain John Lloyd had decided to play Hutchins to save Andy Murray, who was suffering from a slight abductor strain, for Sunday's match against Austria's number one Melzer.

Now, if Britain are to have hopes of retaining their status in the elite 16-nations world knockout group, Murray must win to set up what could be an excruciatingly tense decider between Alex Bogdanovic and Austrian number two Alexander Peya.

Peya is ranked two places below the British number two at 164 in the world but he has been in the world's top 100 and despite losing in straight sets to Andy Murray on Friday he showed he will be no pushover.

The doubles was always going to be a tough assignment for Murray and especially Hutchins, who had played just one other Davis Cup match, a defeat earlier this year against Argentina.

But it was Murray who betrayed his nerves in the first game of the match with a double fault which saw him lose his serve and set the tone for what was a tentative beginning.

The crucial break came in the seventh game when Melzer produced a brilliant cross-court forehand winner to break the Hutchins serve and the Austrians served out to take the set.

Murray and Hutchins struggled to return with any consistency and as early as the second set the Court One raucous optimism had been silenced and it was one-way traffic with the Austrians taking five games in a row.

It was time for a bit of bulldog spirit to get the crowd going and the Britons did just that in the eighth game when they broke the Melzer serve, displaying some brilliant reactions.

They saved six set points, but the Hutchins serve finally succumbed on the seventh when Knowle smashed away a volley.

The third set saw more of the same, Melzer showing his class on his groundstrokes and Knowle, who won the US Open doubles title in 2007, serving brilliantly.

And when Murray lost his serve in the sixth game after some brilliant Austrian returning, Melzer served out to take the match.

Captain Lloyd said: "I thought it would be closer but Austria were always the favourites. Our boys are disappointed. They didn't play as well as they can. But it's all about winning three matches and we still think we can win the match."