The biggest star is rising 18-year-old Melanie Oudin, not a Williams sister, going into a semifinal matchup with Russia on Saturday and Sunday. The Russian team is also missing some highly ranked players, but neither was fretting over who wasn't on hand for the best-of-5 tie at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena.
"We have our core team," U.S. Fed Cup captain Mary Joe Fernandez said after Friday's draw ceremony. "We've played together a lot already in the last year and a half. Everyone jells really well. It's great chemistry. It would have been a bonus to have one of the Williams sisters here or both obviously. But unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. But this is what we're used to, this is what we know, and this is what we love.
"Melanie said it well (Thursday) night, we've become a family."
Serena and Venus Williams - the world No. 1 and No. 4 player, respectively - bowed out with leg problems. That leaves Oudin, who will open against Russia's No. 2 singles player, Alla Kudryavtseva. It will be Kudryavtseva's first Fed Cup tie.
Oudin reached a career-high 31st in the rankings this week and made the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open last year after upsetting Dementieva.
She has a brief but scintillating history with No. 6-ranked Dementieva, her Sunday opponent. They have split two meetings with both earning come-from-behind, three-set victories. Oudin won in last year's U.S. Open in a performance that thrust the teen from suburban Atlanta - a couple of hours from Birmingham - into the spotlight. Dementieva returned the favor in the semifinals of the Open GDF Suez in Paris in February en route to the title.
"Both matches were hard-fought matches, almost three hours," Oudin said. "I know her game very well. She knows mine really well so I think it's going to be a really good match."
Russia has won four of the last six Fed Cup titles, losing to Italy in the finals in 2009. Seeking its record 18th Fed Cup title, the U.S. won the first four meetings and has lost the last three.
Russia is currently No. 2 in the Fed Cup standings, behind Italy and one spot ahead of the U.S.
Russia brought only three of its top 15 players, and is missing world No. 3 Dinara Safina and No. 5 Svetlana Kuznetsova, along with No. 14 Maria Sharapova.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands will play Dementieva in the second singles match. She will team Sunday with No. 1-ranked doubles player Liezel Huber, apparently against Dementieva and Ekaterina Makarova.
Huber isn't sure she's buying that lineup submitted Friday by Russia captain Shamil Tarpischev.
"As far as my knowledge, is that Dementieva doesn't play doubles," Huber said. "I don't know if they put that in to kind of fake us up. Maybe Dementieva has some hidden doubles skills that we don't know about. But bottom line is they all are good players. If it comes down to the wire, I'm looking forward to playing that doubles match."
Dementieva joked that she couldn't remember her last doubles outing, but she's had plenty of success earlier in her career. She won four doubles titles in 2002 and teamed with Safina to secure the Fed Cup title three years later in the finals against France, winning all three of her matches.
"I think that I'm a very experienced player and if my team really needs me to play in a doubles match, I will do so," Dementieva said. "Ekaterina and Alla have been playing doubles almost every single tournament and they've been pretty successful. I don't think it's going to be a problem for us."
Tarpischev mentioned that 2005 Fed Cup match with Dementieva and Safina.
"They had never played together before and they won," he said through a translator. "So you never know. You could have a great result and you could win. It could happen."
Mattek-Sands and Huber staged a big rally in last year's semifinals against the Czech Republic to break a 2-2 tie and secure the Americans' first finals berth since 2003. That could make a similar pressurized situation a little more familiar if it comes down to match No. 5.
"It's definitely a lot of confidence, no matter what the circumstances are," Mattek-Sands said. "We couldn't get down any more, I don't think: (6-2), 5-1, 40-15, I had second serve. You can't come back from more than that, really. It was a great comeback."
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