Safin missed Russia's Davis Cup quarter-final win over France

The Australian Open champion has been troubled by a knee ligament injury since his loss at Wimbledon and was also forced to miss the US Open.

Dmitry Tursunov takes over from Safin and will team up with world number seven Nikolay Davydenko, 2002 Davis Cup hero Mikhail Youzhny and Igor Andreev.

The semi-final will be played indoors in Split from 23-25 September.

"Safin is still not fully recovered from his knee injury and it will be at least another month and a half before he can resume playing," said Russian tennis chief Shamil Tarpishchev.

"Even with him on the team, we would have problems overcoming a formidable Croatian side on their home turf, but without him it makes our task twice as tough."