Australia's Lleyton Hewitt and Wayne Arthurs and Argentina's David Nalbandian will carry the bulk of the workload for their countries in a Davis Cup quarterfinal that will renew longtime rivalries between the two top singles players.
Hewitt and Arthurs are both scheduled to play two singles matches and will combine for doubles tomorrow. Nalbandian will also play two singles matches for Argentina and has been paired with Mariano Puerta in doubles.
The 24-year-old Hewitt beat Nalbandian in the Wimbledon final in 2002 and needed four hours and five sets in an often spiteful match to beat the South American in this year's Australian Open quarterfinals.
During that match, Nalbandian appeared to brush past Hewitt during a changeover. Before the match, which featured a 100-minute fifth set with only one break of serve, Nalbandian had said that Hewitt's on-court antics, including frequent chants of "Come On," were "not very good for the sport."
Nalbandian and Hewitt aren't scheduled to meet until Sunday in reverse singles, and might not at all if the match has been decided 3-0 by the end of tomorrow's doubles, which is unlikely.
Hewitt, who also played a fiery match with another Argentinian player, Juan Ignacio Chela, at the Australian Open this year -- Chela was fined for spitting in the direction of Hewitt -- has refused to be drawn into discussion on his on-court behavior. Hewitt has deferred such questions to Australian captain John Fitzgerald to answer.
Nalbandian also wouldn't answer questions on the issue yesterday at the draw, saying "we will see what happens on Sunday."
Hewitt was sick with the chicken pox when the two teams last met in 2002, a 5-0 whitewash for Argentina on clay at Buenos Aires.
This time the teams will meet on a portable grass court at the Sydney International Tennis Center, the former Olympic complex where Hewitt has lost only one career match -- at the 2000 Olympics.
Today, Hewitt will open against Argentina's second-ranked player, Guillermo Coria, while Arthurs takes on Nalbandian. Nalbandian has a 2-1 career edge over Arthurs, including a four-set, fourth-round win at Wimbledon in 2002 that featured tiebreakers in the second and fourth sets.
Hewitt and Coria have met only once, with the Australian winning on a hardcourt at Indian Wells in 2003 after coming back from one set down.
Fitzgerald said he hopes Hewitt can give Australia an early lead on Friday.
"I'm pleased with the fact that we've got, with the exception of Roger Federer, the best grass-court player in the world to lead things off for us," Fitzgerald said.
The Australia-Argentina winner will play a September semifinal away against either the Netherlands or Slovakia, the other two teams in the top half of the Davis Cup draw.
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