WIENER NEUSTADT, Austria (AP)—Russia captain Shamil Tarpischev has opted to use Igor Kunitsyn for the opening singles of the Davis Cup series against Austria instead of his highest ranked player, Mikhail Youzhny.
The 79th-ranked Kunitsyn, who is 51 places below Youzhny, will open the best-of-five series Friday against Austria’s No. 1 Jurgen Melzer, followed by Andreas Haider-Maurer taking on Russia’s Alex Bogomolov Jr.
Tarpischev declined to elaborate on his decision to overlook Youzhny, who earned his eighth career ATP title and also won the doubles event in Zagreb, Croatia, last weekend.
“One should explain after the match,” Tarpischev said. “We will not give insights in our decisions beforehand.”
Youzhny, who is 15-11 in the Davis Cup, complained about a sore shoulder two days ago but said Friday he would have been fit to play.
“This is a decision by the captain and has nothing to do with my shoulder,” said Youzhny, who did not rule out playing in the reverse singles on Sunday. “We can change the lineup for the final day. It will depend on the results up to then.”
Youzhny was picked to play alongside Nikolay Davydenko in Saturday’s doubles against Alexander Peya and Oliver Marach, though Davydenko acknowledged that the Russian pairing was likely to change.
“No one knows now who will play doubles,” Davydenko said. “We will wait until after Friday and then decide who will play Saturday.”
Melzer expected to play Youzhny but said his preparations were not affected by having to face Kunitsyn.
“It’s fine with me,” the 40th-ranked Austrian said, “If both play at their best, I still prefer playing Kunitsyn instead of Youzhny.”
Austria captain Clemens Trimmel added that “we all are a bit surprised by this. However, we know all four players well so it should not make too much of a difference.”
Kunitsyn is 2-0 against Melzer, including winning a fifth-set tiebreaker in the opening round of last year’s U.S. Open.
“But Davis Cup really is a whole different story,” Kunitsyn said. “Jurgen is the home crowd favorite here so he will get all the support. Who deals better with the nerves, will have the best chance to win.”
Melzer, who is 16-21 in Davis Cup singles, was glad to be drawn in the first match.
“If I can win our first point, I won’t take pressure away from Andreas but I do put extra pressure on Bogomolov,” Melzer said. “He plays his first Davis Cup, let’s see how he handles this.”
Bogomolov, who has been living and training in the United States since 1992, makes his debut in the Davis Cup at age 28 after deciding in November that he would like to compete for his country of birth.
“I don’t know if I’ll be nervous or not when I am on the court,” the 34th-ranked Bogomolov said. “We have a great team, we trained well and we are in a good shape. I am ready for it.”
Russia won the Davis Cup twice—in 2002 and ’06—but narrowly escaped relegation from the World Group last season when it lost its opener against Sweden and then rallied to beat Brazil 3-2 from 1-2 down in the playoffs.
Russia has won both previous series in the 1980s against Austria, which has not been past the opening round since 1995.
The winner will take on defending champion Spain or Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals on April 6-8.