Much was made of the absence of the players ranked one and three in the world before Albert Costa and his counterpart Severin Luthi announced their teams for the opening round of Davis Cup World Group matches. Roger Federer was absent for the Swiss, recovering from a pulmonary complaint (although images showing a clearly unhindered world number one on the practice court on the day the tie began would have been greeted with some chagrin by his team mates), while Rafael Nadal was recovering from the knee injury he sustained at the Australian Open. And so it was left to Spain’s “reserve” players to see off Switzerland, which they did well enough, if not with the spectacular aplomb with which … [Read more...] about Feet of clay give Spain Davis Cup edge