The tennis team of Serbia replaced Russia at the final tournament of the Davis Cup, after the defending champion was excluded from the competition due to the military intervention in Ukraine, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced today.
Serbia was chosen as the best-ranked team that played last year in the semi-finals of the Davis Cup.
Based on that, the Serbian team initially received a special invitation from the organizers, with which it went directly to the finals of the competition in September without participating in the qualifications, but now the wild card will be awarded to another national team.
The decision on this will be made after the end of the qualifications, on March 4 and 5, when an invitation will be awarded to one of the 12 eliminated teams.
Ecuador, Romania, Finland, Colombia, Canada, Brazil, Slovakia, Hungary, Norway, Japan, Czech Republic and Austria will play in the qualifiers.
Apart from Serbia, last year's finalists Croatia and Great Britain, which received one of two special invitations, 12 national teams have so far qualified for the final tournament of the Davis Cup: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and USA.
The group stage of the final tournament will take place in four cities, and the quarter-finals and semi-finals will be played in the fifth city. The hosts will be announced later.
Belarus was also excluded from the competition, which was supposed to play against Mexico in the play-off for survival in World Group 1. With this decision, Mexico remained in World Group 1.
Also, in the Billie Jean King Cup, the former Fed Cup, the current Russian champion was excluded from the competition, who will be replaced by Australia, under the same conditions as Serbia in the Davis Cup.
Australia will therefore not play in the qualifiers, and its opponent Slovakia automatically qualified for the final part of the competition.
Belarus was also excluded from the competition, which was supposed to play against Belgium, which has now automatically advanced to the final stage.
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