Roger Federer has cleared the air over reports he blamed Swiss Davis Cup team-mate Stanislas Wawrinka for their 5-0 loss to the USA.
Federer suffered his first Davis Cup loss in 16 matches against John Isner on Friday, and with Wawrinka going down to Mardy Fish the Swiss team needed a win in the doubles to keep their hopes alive.
But after winning the opening set against Fish and Mike Bryan, Federer and Wawrinka were rolled 4-6 6-3 6-3 6-3 in Fribourg to give up a 3-0 lead to the visitors, and Federer was quoted on Sunday as blaming Wawrinka for the defeat.
"I played well enough in doubles, but Stanislas not so much," Federer was reported as saying.
"He (Wawrinka) didn't have his best match in singles. It's a shame, because of that defeat we weren't able to put the US under pressure."
Speaking ahead of his first-round match at the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, Federer claimed he was misquoted and that his remarks were translated wrongly from French.
The 16-time Grand Slam champion said his actual quote was: "I played a good doubles, and Stan not a bad one," with the word 'not' being lost in the translation.
"I did have a day to sort of recover on Sunday and just sort of weather the press," he said.
"It was taken completely the wrong way, me blaming Stan. I would never do that."
"It was just an unfortunate weekend. With many different circumstances leading to our defeat, first and foremost I think the Americans played really well."
"I've had good conversations with the captain (Severin Luthi), with Stan himself on numerous occasions today and yesterday just making sure that there's no misunderstandings between the two of us."
"It's just the press that started to create something from nothing really."