Adelaide: Australia intends to crush underdogs India in the Davis Cup qualifying tie starting on Friday.

Australian coach Wally Masur and captain John Fitzgerald on Tuesday warned there would be no sympathy for the lowly-ranked Indians on the Memorial Drive centre court.

"This tie, we just see it as a means to an end," Masur told reporters.

"It's a relegation tie and that's not the situation Australia would like to be in, so it's business - three days of business and back to where we belong in the World Group next year.

"Australia has only been out of the World Group once in all these years so it's not an option we really want to entertain."

Fitzgerald said the hard-line approach would combat any Australian complacency against a squad which has no player ranked in the top-400 in singles.

"We want to win this tie badly so we are going to leave no stone unturned in trying to do it," Fitzgerald said.

"We are not going to underestimate them at all, we believe that we have got a competitive opposition."

Masur said the presence of world number one Lleyton Hewitt served notice of Australia's intentions.

"That just shows the level of respect that we and our players have for this competition," he said.

Australia will announce its singles and doubles combinations at the draw on Thursday, with Wayne Arthurs and Scott Draper competing for the other singles spot.

Todd Woodbridge is likely to partner Arthurs or Hewitt in the doubles against an Indian team whose top ranked singles player is Rohan Bopanna, ranked 405th in the world.

India's other team members are 22nd-ranked doubles player Leander Paes (singles ranked number 984), Sunil-Kumar Sipaeya (539) and Vishal Uppal (755).

India's hopes of an upset have been set back by the injury-enforced loss of doubles star Mahesh Bhupathi.

Bhupathi, winner of three Grand Slam doubles titles this year, withdrew on Sunday with a shoulder injury.

He has been replaced in the squad by Uppal.

Agencies