ROGER FEDERER will be in attendance, Tim Henman will not. The upshot of the Davis Cup tie that places Great Britain and the greatest in opposite corners is that Federer’s exile from the competition was for one tie and Henman — while the temptation is enormous — will not be knocking on Jeremy Bates’s door to ask if there might be a vacancy for him in the team.

Of all the mountains that Britain could have been asked to climb to return to the World Group next year, the September qualifier represents the equivalent of the peaks that will provide the backdrop to it. Unless something odd happens in the next four months, Britain know that the best they can hope for is a 3-2 victory and that the world No 1 does not make it a fully committed comeback and play the doubles as well.

Bates, the Britain captain, insists that he would rather be in Switzerland than Santiago and a match on clay in Chile was, along with Spain, the fraughtest of prospects. “We could have been going to some really rough places,” he said. The Swiss do not go quite as mad as the Latins, but with Federer in his pomp, their cowbells make a headache- inducing racket.

Federer decided before the 2005 campaign began that he would sidestep the first-round tie, which Switzerland lost to the Netherlands, because he believed that it would interfere with his desire to hold off the challengers to his No 1 position. Two defeats all year — by Marat Safin in the semi-finals of the Australian Open and, more remarkably, Richard Gasquet in the Monte Carlo Masters quarter-finals — rather proves his point.

Henman chose to retire from the Davis Cup and although he said recently that one should “never say never”, he believes that it would be wrong to pull rank and risk tampering with the spirit that Bates has begun building into a new squad. “It felt very strange to watch the Israel tie on TV,” Henman said, “but there was never a moment when I felt I should be playing . I’ve made my decision and that is the end of it.”

The theory that someone up there does not like Greg Rusedski gathers credence. Not content with every ace in the pack being paired with him on the ATP Tour (after Federer and Andy Roddick in recent first-round matches, Guillermo Coria is a near-certain first opponent in Hamburg next week), the ITF did not do him any favours at yesterday’s draw. On the flip side, consider what it would mean for him to upset Federer, inspire a famous win and play a part next year in helping Britain to a first World Group victory for two decades.

Andy Murray, having sneaked inside the world’s top 400 and now playing a series of Futures events in Spain, is revelling in the thought of bruising the world No 1’s reputation. “It will be a great chance for two players to have a real go at him,” Bates said. “What could be more inspiring? During the next few weeks I shall be looking for those players who are ready to get their knees dirty, those with the heart for a fight and passion to want to play for their country. A lot of the guys say they do. Now they have to show it.”