There is one vacancy in the streamlined Australian Davis Cup squad for next month's first-round tie against Ecuador in Perth, but no suggestion that new captain John Fitzgerald is holding the spot open in case a certain big-serving Victorian completes a miraculous recovery from knee surgery.
Fitzgerald and coach Wally Masur yesterday named Lleyton Hewitt, Patrick Rafter, Wayne Arthurs and Todd Woodbridge in the preliminary team for the February 9-11 grasscourt tie at Royal Kings Park. Australian Open wildcard Alun Jones was chosen as the junior hitting partner.
"Mark (Philippoussis) is injured. He has had an arthroscope just a week or so ago. He is not available for this tie; it is impossible to be," Fitzgerald said yesterday, aware that Philippoussis intends to resume in Memphis on February19.
"We are leaving that spot open because we want to see how some of our other players who are worthy of a position in this squad pull up in the next week. It is pretty hard to name a fifth guy this early in the tournament."
The selection of five players is a distinct move away from the squads that seemed to grow with each tie towards the end of the Newcombe-Roche era. The invitation to Jones, a 20-year-old from the ACT who showed some promising signs in a first-round loss at Melbourne Park to Juan Carlos Ferrero, is a return to the "orange boy" system that proved so fruitful for Hewitt in the corresponding tie at White City in 1997.
Fitzgerald described Jones as "a player we believe has a future in Australian tennis. He is a raw young kid who hasn't had a lot of tennis for a 20-year-old. But we think he has a lot of potential and we want to work with that".
Ecuador will be represented by the Lapentti brothers, Nicolas and Giovanni, who combined to upset Britain on grass at Wimbledon last July to qualify for the world group. The elder, Nicolas, is a former Australian Open semi-finalist, and described by Fitzgerald as "an absolute class tennis player". He was, however, beaten in straight sets yesterday by Tim Henman.
Far less is known about Giovanni, who won the decisive fifth rubber against Arvind Parmar in July and is playing in the junior event here, but the scouting process is already under way. From his big brother's point of view, Giovanni has "the weapons to be a great player", yet Nicolas is less optimistic about his country's Perth prospects, rating Ecuador's chances of causing an upset at just fivepercent.
Meanwhile, Tennis Australia still plans to extend a Fed Cup invitation to "Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia" after Sunday's draw. President Geoff Pollard met with Dokic before her first-round loss to Lindsay Davenport on Monday and expects to speak with Australian passport holder again next week.
"When we know what the draw is we will invite all Australian women to participate," Pollard said, conceding that in these unusual circumstances "we would do a general invitation and I suppose you do work a bit harder on more higher-ranked players and less harder as you go down".