Jonas Bjorkman and Joachim Johansson won an epic doubles match on Saturday to give Sweden a 2-1 lead over defending champions Australia in their first round Davis Cup tie in Adelaide.

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The Swedes survived a brave fightback from the Australian pair of Todd Woodbridge and Wayne Arthurs to win 7-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-7, 7-5 on a scorching hot day at the Memorial Drive tennis centre.

The result left Sweden needing to win just one of Sunday's two reverse singles to advance to the quarter-finals against either the United States or Austria.

"It was high quality out there. It came down to a few lucky shots at the end," Bjorkman said.

The Swedish pair, playing together for the first time, looked to have the match under control when they opened up a two-set lead before the Australians suddenly struck back.

They took the first set in a tiebreak then grabbed the second after Australia had led 4-1.

Woodbridge and Arthurs won the third with two breaks of serve then levelled the match at two sets all, winning a tiebreak after blowing a 4-2 lead.

The match was briefly stopped after the Swedes complained that sections of the crowd were making offensive remarks about them with Australian coach Wally Masur appealing to spectators to behave better.

The Australians got an early break in the deciding fifth set and seemed to have the momentum with them when they led 4-3 on serve before the match took a final twist.

Woodbridge, whose serve was broken five times in the match, handed the break back then dropped serve again in the 12th game to concede defeat after four-and-a-half hours.

Sweden had taken a 1-0 lead on Friday when Thomas Enqvist upset Australian number one Mark Philippoussis in straight sets but Lleyton Hewitt hit back with a three set win over Robin Soderling to leave the tie locked at 1-1.

Philippoussis was due to play Soderling in Sunday's first singles match followed by Hewitt against Enqvist.