Nadal, who won the French Open, Wimbledon and the Olympics men's singles tennis gold medal in taking over tennis's top ranking this year, leads a strong Spanish team. Spanish captain Emilio Sanchez said No. 5-ranked David Ferrer, No. 15 Fernando Verdasco and 38th-ranked Feliciano Lopez will make up the rest of the Spanish squad.

The United States last week said its team would be No. 8-ranked Andy Roddick and 11th-rated James Blake for singles and world No. 1 team of Bob and Mike Bryan in doubles.

The Davis Cup semifinals will be Sept. 19-21 in Madrid on the Spaniards' favored clay surface. The winner goes to the Davis Cup finals against either Russia or Argentina.

Under the Davis Cup format, there are two singles matches on the first day of the best-of-five series, with the doubles match on the second and reverse singles on the third day.