BREAKING NEWS! RUSSIA KICKED OUT: Djoković CELEBRATES, Medvedev KNOCKED DOWN!

The defender of the Davis Cup title, the Russian national team, was expelled from the competition, and instead the Serbian national team, led by Novak Djoković, will take part in the unofficial world tennis championship.

Serbia was chosen as the best ranked team that played in the Davis Cup semifinals last year.

Based on that, the Serbian team originally received a special invitation from the organisers, with which it went directly to the finals of the competition in September without participating in the qualifications, but now the wild card will be awarded to another national team.

Apart from Serbia, last year's finalist of Croatia and Great Britain, which received one of two special invitations, 12 national teams have so far qualified for the Davis Cup final tournament: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

Belarus was also excluded from the competition. They was supposed to play against Mexico in the barrage for their survival in World Group 1. With this decision, Mexico remained in World Group 1.