Federer rescues Swiss

After winning Friday's opening singles rubber against Serbian number two Janko Tipsarevic and then taking a second point in the doubles alongside partner Yves Allegro on Saturday, Federer made it three out of three on Sunday to put the Swiss 3-1 up with one dead rubber left to play.

Djokovic came into Sunday's encounter on the back of an impressive 12 months during which he had climbed 60 ranking places to world number 21.

The 19-year-old was struggling from the start against a cool and confident Federer, however, doing well to defend four early break points before finally cracking in the sixth game of the opening set.

Even by Federer's high standards, the second set was breathtaking with the Swiss winning three of his four service games to love and twice breaking his opponent with a series of stunning winners that even drew grins from the increasingly hapless Djokovic.

Trailing 3-0 after dropping two further service games at the start of the third set, the young Serb finally gave Federer something to think about with a surprising break back to 3-1 before earning another break point at 4-3.

Any chance of an unlikely comeback soon faded though after Federer retrieved the situation with an ace, served out the game and then broke Djokovic once more to complete his victory.

Federer's three-point haul was the fifth of his Davis Cup career, following one-man shows against Romania, France, Morocco and the U.S.

Switzerland were drawn into this weekend's relegation battle after losing 3-2 to Australia in a first round tie which Federer opted out of.

Since taking Switzerland to the semi-finals and quarter-finals of the 2003 and 2004 competitions, Federer has decided to skip the Davis Cup first round to concentrate on his individual career.

In 2005, the nine-times grand slam champion was also absent from Switzerland's 3-2 first-round defeat by the Netherlands but returned to inspire the team's 5-0 win over Britain.