Madrid: Spain played down on Friday the significance of Russia's absent top seeds for this weekend's Fed Cup final and said the defending champions would still be the favourites.
Elena Dementieva, Dinara Safina and Maria Sharapova, seeded fourth, fifth and sixth in the world, are all missing from the Russian team.
But they still boast world No. 9 Vera Zvonareva, who takes on Spain's No. 1 Anabel Medina Garrigues in Saturday's opener, and world No. 7 Svetlana Kuznetsova who faces Carla Suarez in the second singles rubber.
"They are still the favourites. We have a good doubles pair, but so do they," the hosts' Virginia Ruano told a news conference.
Medina Garrigues is Spain's highest ranked singles player at 29, and, with Ruano, makes up the other half of Spain's silver medal winning doubles duo from the Beijing Olympics.
However, team captain Miguel Margets named Nuria Llagostera as Ruano's partner to play Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in Sunday's doubles, with Medina Garrigues competing in the reverse singles matches earlier in the day.
Russia captain Shamil Tarpishchev backed his team's despite the absence of Olympic champion Dementieva and Beijing silver medallist Safina, who ruled themselves out for personal reasons.
"We have the strongest team available at this moment in time," Tarpishchev said.
"Those competing (in the latter stages) of the US Open would not have been properly prepared, and the Olympics was very hard on players physically and mentally."
Russia, who are seeking their fourth Fed Cup title in five years, play Spain on clay at the Club de Campo in Madrid on Saturday and Sunday.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)
 |
 |
 |
|
More on IBNLive Right Now
TOP NEWS
PHOTOGALLERY
