BUENOS AIRES, Sept 23: Jose Acasuso finished off a hard-fought five set win over Lleyton Hewitt to put Argentina 2-0 ahead in their Davis Cup world group semi-final against Australia on Saturday.

The rubber had been suspended on rain on Friday with Acasuso leading 4-0 in the fifth set and Hewitt on break point in the fifth game.

Although Hewitt pounced on a short serve to break back with the first point of the day on a chilly morning, he was undone by a string of unforced errors in the next two games as Acasuso won 1-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1.

Acasuso, who needed 12 minutes to finish off the rubber, broke back immediately as Hewitt doubled faulted twice in the next game, then held serve to complete his win to the delight of the 14,000 crowd.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Bob and Mike Bryan beat Mikhail Youzhny and Dmitry Tursunov 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in the doubles on Saturday to keep US States hopes alive in their semi-final against Russia.

The twin brothers broke Youzhny's serve once in each of the first two sets to take a two-set lead before breaking Tursunov in the opening game of the third set to seal a comfortable victory.

The win pulled the Americans back to 2-1 down in the three-day tie after Marat Safin and Youzhny had given the home team a 2-0 lead by winning both singles matches on Friday.—Reuters