Tennis-Russia blame "murderous" calendar for Israel fiasco

MOSCOW, July 13 (Reuters) - Russia's tennis chief has blamed the "murderous" international calendar for his team's shock defeat by Israel in their Davis Cup quarter-final.

"The main problem is this murderous calendar," Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the Russian tennis federation, was quoted as saying by local media following a 4-1 fiasco in Tel Aviv over the weekend.

Tarpishchev, who guided Russia to Davis Cup triumphs in 2002 and 2006, said the timing of the last-eight ties -- coming immediately after the gruelling clay and grass court seasons -- gave top players almost no time to recover.

"This is not only a big problem for us. Just look at the other top teams like U.S., Spain, Argentina or Germany.

"It seems like every top team was missing their best players," he said, naming American Wimbledon finalist Andy Roddick, Spanish world number two Rafael Nadal, Argentina's David Nalbandian, Germany's Tommy Haas and Croatia's duo of Ivan Ljubicic and Mario Ancic.

The top-ranked Russians were without world number 11 Nikolay Davydenko and 24th-ranked Dmitry Tursunov, who was forced to pull out after failing to recover from an ankle injury.

"Such scheduling gives smaller teams an unfair advantage," said Tarpishchev. "That's why you see so many upsets."

Davis Cup heavyweights the United States and Argentina were also dumped out by Croatia and the Czech Republic respectively, while champions Spain squeezed into the semi-finals with a 3-2 win over Germany.

However, Tarpishchev gave credit to the Israelis for playing inspired tennis. "I must say the better team won. They were much better prepared and deserved to win." (Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov; editing by Justin Palmer

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