The French Alps this past weekend was the scene for something which hasn't happened in more than 50 years of Davis Cup tennis. It's even more surprising when you consider the depth of talent in the nation involved. Spain lost to France in the quarter finals of the Davis Cup, but the scoreline was something strange. 5-0 to France.

The last time Spain lost by that margin was in 1957. To be fair, Wimbledon champ and world #1 Rafa Nadal was absent. But so too were Jo Wilfred Tsonga and Richard Gasquet on the French side.

It was left to the talented Gael Monfils, and Michael Llodra, better known for his doubles prowess (and in Australia for accidentally killing a bird on Rod Laver Arena with a serve!) to take on the considerable armada of Spaniards led by Fernando Verdasco and David Ferrer.

The key in Davis Cup is to exploit the home ground advantage. That means choosing the conditions wisely, especially the court surface itself.

Leaving aside Rafa (who so far this year has won all three Masters 1000 events, and Roland Garros without the loss of a set) and Swede Robin Soderling, the next best two performed players on clay this year were Verdasco and Ferrer. So no prize for figuring the absence of Nadal did not make a clay court choice stack up for the French.

So a hard court was duly chosen, it was put indoors, and for good measure up in the hills where the altitude makes conditions even faster. In other words, as far away from outdoor clay court conditions as you can get. Perfectly legal and eminently sensible.

The opening match saw an inspired Monfils better Ferrer in five tough sets, and Verdasco only managed to break Llodra's formidable serve once whilst being outgunned in four. The French won the doubles and went on to sweep the tie. Every match was tough but the combination of the conditions and 15,000 joyous fans swung each rubber to the French.

As for Australia, we move to our World Group qualifying tie with Belgium in September with a range of court surface options. We could have opted for the traditional choice (grass) given Lleyton Hewitt's prowess, but Wimbledon demonstrated that we lack a back up singles player right now to Lleyton on grass. On the other hand, both of the likely Belgian singles players are proven performers on the turf. Xavier Malisse is a former Wimbledon semi finalist, and Olivier Rochus only last week reached the final of Newport, one of the rare ATP events conducted on grass these days. So we have chosen to play in Cairns on hard court, being a combination of surface and non-European climatic conditions which would seem to enhance our chances of returning to the elite World Group after a three-year absence.

As for the Spanish, they get to ease the pain of last weekend's thumping by celebrating something else that was happening last weekend.... their nation's first World Cup victory, a party that is likely to last for weeks if not months and which is tipped to assist a turnaround in the ailing Spanish economy.

The power of sport is something strange indeed.