By Jack Massey
Marat Safin’s withdrawal from the Russian Davis Cup team set to take on Argentina in this week’s semi-final is not necessarily an advantage according to Argentine David Nalbandian.
“They have far more dangerous men than him in the team, so we would have liked him to play,” said World No. 7 Nalbandian.
Safin preferred to concentrate on individual rankings points at the ATP event in Bangkok next week, rather than travel to Buenos Aires for the tie. Russia’s team now comprises of Nikolay Davydenko, Igor Andreev, Dmitry Tursunov and Igor Kunitsyn.
Nalbandian is confident that Argentina, whose team also includes teen sensation Juan Martin Del Potro, Agustin Calleri and Guillermo Canas, could prevail in the best of five tie which starts on Friday.
“We’ve been training since Tuesday and the team is fine.”
“It will be a very tough tie but we must work hard. We need to be focused during the whole weekend.”