Enqvist issues Swedish challenge

Sweden captain Thomas Enqvist has challenged his players to upset defending champions Serbia in the Davis Cup quarter-finals this weekend.

The Swedes head into the tie at Halmstad Arena on Friday without world number five Robin Soderling, who has opted to sit out in order to have a break and allow his sore foot to fully heal.
While disappointed to be without his star man, Enqvist believes every cloud has a silver lining and has urged Michael Ryderstedt and Ervin Eleskovic - world numbers 297 and 355, respectively - to make the most of Soderling's absence in their singles rubbers.
He told www.daviscup.com: "Nothing bad without something good.
"Now we can really see where the other players stand and they will have the opportunity to play world-class players at home."
Serbia, led by new world number one Novak Djokovic and also boasting two other top-30 ranked players in Viktor Troicki (16) and Janko Tipsarevic (29), have not lost a Davis Cup tie since their 2009 first-round defeat to Spain.
Like Sweden, Spain will be without their biggest name against the United States with world number two Rafael Nadal having decided to rest in order to be in good shape for the second half of the season.
Spain captain Albert Costa will still have a strong team at his disposal, though, with world number six David Ferrer in his line-up along with Fernando Verdasco (23) and Feliciano Lopez (31).
Andy Roddick, who at world number 10 will be one of two top-10 singles players in the US team along with eighth-ranked Mardy Fish, will be playing in his adopted home town of Austin, Texas, and could get the chance to gain swift revenge against his Wimbledon conqueror Lopez.
"I lose at Wimbledon. It's kind of my disappointment. It's my loss. These guys still went through and had great tournaments," Roddick said, reflecting on the Bryan twins Bob and Mike's doubles title win and Fish's quarter-final run.
"Here it's a totally different atmosphere. We get to three (wins), I don't think any of us care how we get there.
"Davis Cup is an environment I'm extremely comfortable in. I felt like I was playing well going into Wimbledon. Ran into a guy who was serving really well and was a hot player.
"It's actually probably healthy for me that I had this around the corner. It was something that I could instantly focus on after the fact."
Juan Martin del Potro will be part of the Argentina team which faces Kazakhstan - his first Davis Cup action for two years.
Del Potro said: "I feel glad. I had a really bad year last year but now I'm trying to make a good comeback and this week I will have the chance to play in the Davis Cup so I will try to be in good form for the next matches.
"I feel a little nervous but I will be ready for the fight tomorrow."
The world number 19 will take on Mikhail Kukushkin in the second singles rubber on the outdoor clay at Parque Roca.
The tie, which begins tomorrow - a day earlier than the other three quarter-finals due to national elections in Buenos Aires on Sunday - starts with Juan Monaco's match against Andrey Golubev.
Juan Ignacio Chela and Eduardo Schwank will face Evgeny Korolev and Yuriy Schukin in the doubles on Friday before the reverse singles on Saturday.
France boast an entire quartet ranked in the world's top 30 in their team to take on Germany in Stuttgart, with Gael Monfils (seven) Richard Gasquet (11), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (14) returning to the line-up alongside Michael Llodra (28).
Despite their strength in depth, France captain Guy Forget was taking nothing for granted.
"To me it means nothing," he said of the rankings. "In the past, we had strong teams on paper and it does not always work out. And we sometimes won with weaker teams.
"So I do not judge the strength of a team in terms of classification only.
"Last year, we had to do most of the campaign without Jo, which did not stop us reaching the final and moving to the brink of victory [before losing 3-2 to Serbia].
"You can only gauge the strength of a team when the campaign is over."