Jarmila Gajdosova secured an unbeatable lead for Australia in their Fed Cup tie against Switzerland with a 6-3 3-6 8-6 victory over world No.219 Amra Sadikovic in Fribourg.
Gajdosova’s win in two hours and 19 minutes handed Australia an unassailable 3-1 lead in the best-of-five contest.
It was Gajdosova’s second straight marathon match after losing an even longer contest to No.124 Stefanie Voegele on Saturday.
The result keeps Australia in the running to return to the World Group next year.
Australia will play one of the World Group first-round losers in April for a berth in the elite eight-nation competition next year.
While Gajdosova played nearly five hours during her two matches, Samantha Stosur found it much easier going on the temporary indoor clay court.
The US Open champion won both her matches in straight sets in some encouraging signs following her disastrous Australian summer.
The world No.5 followed up her win over Timea Bacsinszky with a better performance in a 6-3 6-2 demolition of Voegele on Sunday.
Stosur felt she was building momentum.
“It has boosted my confidence and it is exactly the way I wanted to play as soon as I got over here,” she said from Switzerland.
“You want to win as many matches as possible to erase anything negative and it does not matter the opposition, it is always good to win.”
Such was Stosur’s dominance on serve that Voegele did not even have a break point opportunity during the match.
She will spend the next week training in Liechtenstein, where her coach David Taylor is based for most of the year.
Stosur will then head to Doha and Qatar before the north American hardcourt tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami and Charleston.
Team captain David Taylor said Gajdosova had repaid the faith put in her following her opening day defeat.
“You could not have written a better script for her redemption today after yesterday’s defeat,” he said.
“She was much better emotionally, she handled the crowd better and she handled the blows.
“She was serving at 5-3 for the match and played a poor game to lose the game.
“But she believed there would be another opportunity for her.”
Taylor felt Gajdosova’s win could help turn around her ordinary start to the year.
“I think that result would have done her a world of good,” he said.
“It is not easy playing against the crowd and you have your team on the sidelines and all the emotion and responsibility involved with that.
“I think this win will give her a real shot in the arm,” he said.