ANDY Murray won't be in attendance, but the need for a passionate Braehead crowd to come out and support the AEGON GB Davis Cup team will be greater than ever.

The world No 4's absence after his Australian exertions means Great Britain go into next weekend's Euro/Africa Zone I match against Slovakia as massive outsiders, but Leon Smith, the team's Glaswegian captain, took time out from his responsibilities with the Fed Cup team in Eilat, Israel, to rally the nation's tennis troops.

With Murray's fellow Scot Jamie Baker sidelined with a stomach problem, Smith has opted to go with world No 155 James Ward and Daniel Evans, ranked 296th, for his two singles rubbers, with Linlithgow's Colin Fleming set to partner Ross Hutchins in Saturday's doubles.

On paper, this team look set to face a difficult weekend against a Slovakian side captained by the country's best-ever player Miloslav Mecir. The biggest weapon in the armoury of Mecir is Lukas Lacko, the world No 97, who cantered through qualifying at the Australian Open before beating Ivan Ljubicic and Donald Young, eventually being eliminated by Rafael Nadal. Then there is Martin Klizan, a tall, left-hander who is ranked at 116 but has a career high ranking of 85, and two weeks ago completed a straight-sets demolition job on Luxembourg's Gilles Muller. Doubles pairing Filip Polasek and Michal Mertinak are no mugs either.

But fortunately Smith is not the sort to admit defeat before the match gets started. "It is a great opportunity for Ward and Evans on the singles front to go out there and make names for themselves," he said. "When you look at this tie now and the form of the Slovakians, we are definitely underdogs but it is not impossible, it is not like they are playing against top 10 or even top 50 players. If they are serious about their careers, these are the sort of moments which can give them a springboard and a lot of confidence.

"Obviously rankings don't lie, so you have to try to find some way to find an edge somewhere. You need to do your research because otherwise the better player usually prevails. You get to pick your court surface and the kind of balls you use and hopefully the crowd can play a part. It will be different obviously with no Andy there – we need to accept that – but we need to try to gee the crowd up as much as possible. I hope a lot of people come along and fill the stadium."

While Ward made great strides last year to establish himself as the bona fide British No 2, Evans, pictured, is an intriguing work in progress, a one-time "bad boy" of the British game. In 2008, the LTA temporarily withdrew funding after he visited a nightclub hours before he was due to play a boys' singles match at Wimbledon, and in 2010 he was questioned about an alleged sexual assault outside a nightclub in Bath. But in the last few months the 21-year-old has shown more maturity, and produced some of his best tennis. "Players take a bit of time to mature," Smith said.

"Dan came out of juniors quite quickly and made his way up the ATP rankings almost as quickly as anyone really. He won a Challenger competition about a year out of juniors and his ranking rose quite quickly.

"And then he stopped for one reason or another, it is probably pretty well documented, but the ups and downs he has had in the last few years seem to be behind him and at the moment he is in a good place. He came into the National Tennis Centre at the beginning of December and did a very good pre-season block of physical work and has not switched off since.

"He got through qualifiers in Zagreb recently and had a competitive match against [Guillermo] Garcia-Lopez who is obviously a good established tour player. It is probably more just his focus and attention to off court stuff that has been the problem. It is important he keeps being professional, looks after his body and does a lot more training physically. Because when he gets on a match court that is when he switches on. He is actually a very, very good competitor, he is streetwise on the court and has a lot of options."

Murray's absence is a headache for Smith but the Davis Cup captain knows that for his former pupil winning a Grand Slam is the ultimate goal.

"Any team is going to miss the No 4 player in the world but I understand his reasons," Smith said. "He comes off the back of a really good run in the Australian Open and it is a really busy year ahead for him. An Olympic year as well. You look at guys like Rafa and Novak [Djokovic] and the injuries they were feeling towards the end of last year. It just shows you have to let your body recover and then train up again, otherwise you won't last the year. More than anything else, we would love it if he won a slam so with all that in the mind it is important that he finds a schedule which gives him every opportunity to have his strongest year."