Robin Soderling is in action as Sweden host Russia in the Davis Cup this weekend.
Both countries have a rich and illustrious Davis Cup history in particular the Swedes who won the Davis Cup seven times between 1975 and 1998 with the help of stars like Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, Thomas Enqvist and Jonas Bjorkman. Russia have enjoyed more recent success, winning the competition twice in the past decade.
The current Swedish team is weaker than some of the world-beating sides they fielded in the '70s, '80s and '90s but they are still spearheaded by world number four Robin Soderling who has begun 2011 in the form of his life. Soderling has already picked up three titles in Brisbane, Rotterdam and Marseille and looks set to put pressure on the big three over the next few months.
However they lack a world class second singles player and have resorted to picking former top ten star Joachim Johansson, on yet another comeback. Johansson was one of the biggest servers in the world back at his peak in 2005 but his career has been crippled by injury. He played a challenger event last month, losing in the second round.
Russia would be favourites but they are badly missing Mikhail Youzhny and Nikolay Davydenko. Instead their line-up is Teymuraz Gabashvili, Igor Andreev, Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov. Tursunov may the lowest ranked of the four but he is in fine form and made the semi-finals recently in Marseille so he may well play two singles rubbers.
Expect Soderling to win his two singles rubbers but this one could go down to the wire and Sweden's regular doubles pairing of Simon Aspelin and Robert Lindstedt could well prove crucial.
