Big guns out for Croatia

Mario Ancic, who led Croatia to victory with partner Ivan Ljubicic in 2005, announced his retirement last year following a string of illnesses and injuries.

Additionally, neither Ljubicic nor the county's number one, Marin Cilic, was named for the best-of-five contest at the Bourbon Beans Dome in western Japan.

Instead Ivan Dodig and Ivo Karlovic will take on Japan who are set to make their first appearance in the World Group for over 15 years after defeating India in a play-off last year.

On Friday the Japanese number two Go Soeda will play Dodig followed by the country's number one, Kei Nishikori, who takes on Karlovic.

Record

The record-breaking Japanese star reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open and became the highest-ever ranked Japanese men's player - 20th in the world.

Croatian captain Zelijko Krajan has taken note of the strong opposition.

He said: "In the last few months things have maybe turned around and maybe put the Japanese team in a slight favourites role with the way Kei played in Australia."

However, he retains strong belief in his Croatian side, adding: "the other three players are proving themselves as top-100 players. I believe in my guys and I still believe that we are going to come out as the winners on Sunday."

For his part, Japanese captain Eiji Takeuchi said: "Go is playing the perfect game right now and Kei has had almost the same results as Karlovic, so it's going to be interesting, but they have big serves so we must focus on our returns."