With the first day singles split following a loss to debutant Marinko Matosevic and a win to Bernard Tomic, the doubles, played in front of a capacity crowd, was pivotal.
Hewitt and Guccione ultimately prevailed 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 over Gong Mao-Xin and and Li Zhe.
Left-hander Guccione remained unbroken for the entire match and served out each of the three sets, while Hewitt dropped his delivery just once in the first set.
Pugnacious Hewitt kept the Chinese pairing under constant pressure with his consistency on return of serve.
The Australians broke in the opening game of the match and staved off three break points on the Hewitt delivery in the fourth game.
The visiting pair secured the decisive break of the second set in the seventh game and took a stranglehold on the match with a further break in the fifth game of the third.
Australian captain Pat Rafter said he would wait to Sunday morning before deciding whether to use Hewitt in the reverse singles.
Hewitt has been troubled by a foot problem in recent months and Rafter wanted to see how his veteran pulled up on Sunday.
"He has had his problems with his feet and we have to see how he feels the next day, sometimes he is good, sometimes he is not," Rafter said of Hewitt.
The man himself was noncommittal about his potential involvement on Sunday.
"We make the right decision for our team and what's in the best interest of the team so you will find out tomorrow," Hewitt said.
If Hewitt does play it could be at the expense of Matosevic, who is scheduled to face Zhang Ze in the first of the reverse singles, with Tomic down to oppose Wu Di in the final rubber.
Hewitt felt Guccione and himself played well right from the start of the doubles.
"We took it to them, we had a very good game plan," Hewitt said.
"Chris and I play extremely well together and we have a lot of confidence in each other.
"We were pretty happy with the way we went today, our intensity was fantastic.
"Chris and I had to play a very clean and smart match to win today, which we did."
Guccione said the Australians were aware the Chinese combination had played together a lot.
"We needed to return well which Lleyton always does and it was good for me to get a bit of confidence up," Guccione said.
- AAP
Tags: sport, tennis, australia, china First posted July 9, 2011 18:48:00
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