Seven French players and Davis Cup captain Guy Forget will head to St. Cyprien at the end of next week to begin preparations for the Davis Cup final in Serbia in December.
Gael Monfils, Michael Llodra, Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet, Arnaud Clement and Julien Benneteau will all travel to the coastal area in the south of France for training, accompanied by the injured Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Gasquet pulled out of a scheduled challenger event this coming week in order to concentrate on the Davis Cup buildup.
Monfils is virtually assured of being named for singles play if healthy, but Forget has a difficult decision to make in selecting the second singles player. Llodra made himself the prime candidate by defeating Serbia's Novak Djokovic in Paris, but is also expected to feature in doubles play and could require substitution for one of the singles matches in order to avoid playing three times in three days. Simon and Gasquet are the other potential picks for singles.
Clement or Benneteau would be likely to partner Llodra in doubles, unless Forget decides to forego an established doubles combination in order to have more flexibility for the singles.
Players can be substituted up to one hour before a match, but only four players may be named to the team. With Llodra able to do double duty, France could pick a name solely for doubles and still have three solid singles options on the team.
Serbian calculations are expected to be simpler, with Novak Djokovic a lock for singles and Nenad Zimonjic leading the doubles effort alongside one of the three other players. Janko Tipsarevic is favored to be the second singles player as long as he recovers from the hip injury that caused him to pull out of this week's event in Paris. Viktor Troicki will be the fourth member of the team.