The Davis Cup and the Federations Cup more commonly known as the Fed Cup may hold distinguished places on the tennis calendar, but they have been made to fight to retain those positions in the modern game.

With tour schedules becoming ever tighter and more lucrative, many top players are preferring to skip early-round matches for their countries in order to ensure some valuable respite from the rigours of day-to-day competitions.

Andy Murray was a high-profile absentee from Great Britain's gruelling World Group qualifying trip to Argentina in February 2008, a decision so controversial it even angered his older brother, fellow team member Jamie.

Recently the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova and Dinara Safina have all been criticised for withdrawing from Fed Cup ties, often having shed little light on any injury problems they may have had to contend with.

The expansion of the ATP's and WTA's top-level non-Grand Slam tournaments the ATP's Masters Series and the WTA's mandatory events - have again raised questions over the validity of asking big names to take a week out for long-haul flights.

One suggestion has been to revamp the competitions into one World Cup-style event involving multiple countries at one venue over a single week either on a two or four-year basis.

However, potential changes have been fiercely resisted by officials who point, with some justification, to the epic nature of their current format, borne out by Spain, shorn of Rafael Nadal, beating Argentina on the South American clay in 2008.