China booked their berth in the World Group play-off with a clinical victory over Australia to win the Fed Cup Asia-Oceania zone Group I women's team tennis event while India registered a face saving win over Korea to finish third.
The Chinese were without their number one player, world number 42 Na Li, but that made little difference to the outcome as Tian Tian Sun and Jie Zheng registered an efficient if not entirely smooth victories over Evie Dominikovic and Samantha Stosur respectively to take a 2-0 lead.
Sun, the Athens Olympics women's doubles gold medallist, resisted a late challenge by Dominikovic to emerge 6-3, 7-5 winner and put her team in the lead.
Zheng, who had reached the Australian Open fourth round last year, then overcame a few stuttering moments in the second set before prevailing 6-3, 6-4 over Stosur.
The inconsequential doubles tie was cancelled.
Australia, the seven-time champions and out of the World Group for the first time in the tournament's 42-year history, remain in Group 1.
India registered a face-saving 2-1 victory over Korea in a match to decide the 3-4th placing.
India, out of the reckoning after finishing second in pool A, were off to a bad start with Ankita Bhambri going down 6-1, 6-3 to Ye-Ra Lee in an hour and six minutes.
But Shikha Uberoi levelled the scores with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Jin-Hee Kim before partnering with Rushmi Chakravarthi to win the decisive doubles match 6-3, 6-3 against Kyung-Mi Chang and Jin-A Lee.
Ankita dropped her first two service games as Ye-Ra Lee went up 5-0 in the first set. The right-handed Korean let the match drift before pulling up her socks in time to seal the issue.
The 22-year old Shikha, playing her first Fed Cup, then put up a creditable performance that went some distance in assuaging her tame loss to China's Na Li in the pool engagement on Friday.
In fact, Kim held her serve only thrice and was broken three times in the second set as the US-based Indian drilled forehand winner after winner.
Shikha had her uncertain moments as when she made two double faults and was broken in the third game of the first set, but that was about the only blemish in her game on Saturday.
In the other matches, New Zealand and Chinese Taipei clinched their singles matches against Singapore and Kazakhstan respectively to stay in Group I.
Singapore and Kazakhstan were relegated to Grouyp II and will be replaced by Uzbekistan and Philippines next year.
The China-Australia tie had some drama surrounding it even before the day's programme began. It was originally scheduled to be played in the side courts but the officials rightfully restored it to the Centre Court.
Li, very much the player to beat this week, had to fly back home to complete visa formalities before heading to Europe to play in WTA Tour.
Asked how did he release her for the important match, Chinese captain Jiang Hong Wei said, "look at the scores."
And the tennis lived up to the expectations, although Sun and Zheng made it look very much a no-contest.
Sun earned her break in the very second game which saw Dominikovic erring on an easy backhand volley. The Chinese held the advantage to clinch the set before uncorking a break in the very first game.
The 25-year-old Aussie however fought back. Dominikovic came up with some strong serves and helped by some unforced errors by Sun -- a volley error followed by to forehands into the net -- broke back in the 10th game.
A controversial line call in the next game seemed to upset Dominikovic. A forehand clipped the net to fall wide and concede the break.
Zheng dropped her very first serve but levelled it 2-2 and forced another break to go up 4-2 against Stosur.
There was a drop in the levels as the 70th-ranked Zheng committed a few unforced errors which saw her being broken in the fourth and sixth games.
But on every occasion she hit back with a vengeance, her backhand taking the life out of Stosur's ground strokes.
