New York, USA, 4 September 2012 | AAP

Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter has named Bernard Tomic, Lleyton Hewitt, Matt Ebden, rookie James Duckworth and doubles hopeful Chris Guccione in Australia’s team to face Germany in next week’s World Group playoff.

The Australians will remain training on the clay courts at Forest Hills, former venue of the US Open in New York, before travelling to Hamburg on Thursday for the September 14-16 tie.

Hewitt, Tomic and Ebden all scores first round victories last week at the US Open, with Hewitt advancing to the third round before being defeated by No.4 seed David Ferrer.

Hewitt is also one of the best-performed Davis Cup players in Australia’s history, winning a record 49 rubbers with his record standing at 38-11 in singles and 11-3 on the doubles court.

Tomic has a 7-1 win-loss record since debuting in Davis Cup in 2010, his lone defeat coming at the hands of Roger Federer in Australia’s unsuccessful World Group playoff last year at Royal Sydney.

“We’ve got two weeks now of Davis Cup coming up and that’s hard work and hard training,” Rafter said.

Australia must beat Germany to return to the 16-nation top tier of the Davis Cup for the first time since 2007.

The Germans have a powerful team led by world No.20 Philipp Kohlschreiber, who is through to the last 16 at Flushing Meadows, the 21st-ranked Tommy Haas and and world No.23 Florian Mayer.