St. Petersburg, Sep 15: Russian No.1 tennis player Mikhail Youzhny is not in his country's tennis team for a crunch Davis Cup tie because no one called him into the team.
Russia is 0-2 down after the first day of its best-of-five matches Davis Cup play-off against Brazil, in which defeat would see Russia drop out of the top-tier World Group for the first time in history.
For Friday's opening singles rubbers, Russia captain Shamil Tarpishchev sent out Igor Andreev and Teymuraz Gabashvili, respectively ranked 67 and 134 places below World No.29 Youzhny.
"There actually wasn't a refusal. As funny as it seems, no one invited me, no one called me," Youzhny said Saturday.
Asked whether he thought Tarpishchev was deliberately trying to lose the tie, Youzhny declined to comment.
"That question isn't for me."
The other members of Russia's team are Alex Bogomolov Jr., who is ranked 90th in singles and 89th in doubles and world singles No.465 Stanislav Vovk.
Other top-100 singles player left out of the Russia team is No.48 Nikolay Davydenko.
Tarpishchev has not said why Youzhny and Davydenko are not in the team.
