Soderling leads Sweden into Davis Cup play

BORAS, Sweden, March 3 (UPI) -- World No. 4-ranked Robin Soderling highlights the first-round Davis Cup series between Sweden and Russia this weekend.

Soderling will take on Russia's Igor Andreev in the first match of the best-of-five series with the winning team moving to July's Davis Cup quarterfinals against either Serbia or India.

The matches will be played indoors on a hard court in Boras, Sweden.

Soderling may be the highest-ranked player in the series but Andreev has won two of his three matches against Soderling.

Friday's second singles match has Swede Joachim Johansson, a former Top 10 player whose limited play because of injury has him ranked 749, facing Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili, 76th in the world.

The series third match is doubles with Russians Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov set to go against Swedes Simon Aspelin and Robert Lindstedt, who are both in the Top 40 among doubles players.

Soderling is to play Gabashvili in the first match Sunday with the final pairing putting Andreev against Johansson.