Just before I write about the three tournaments coming up this week, I will start with the big news of a Rafa Nadal upset in Chile. He lost at the hands of Horacio Zeballos 7-6 6-7 4-6 and was outplayed in his first major test since his return. Anyone backing Nadal as I suggested at 1.50 before the start of the tournament should have had their profit locked away as he was 1.03 before the start of the final, Also, Gasquet won Montpellier as I predicted at 5.20 and Cilic won Zagreb at 3.20 also as I suggested.
This week, the tour moves up a notch in terms of quality with another three stops, namely Sao Paolo on clay, Rotterdam on indoor hard, and San Jose on outdoor hard. Rotterdam is the pick of the three in terms of quality, mainly because it is a 500 stop while the others are only 250's. Roger Federer plays his first tournament since his Aussie Open semi final defeat to Andy Murray and in truth, it looks like it is his tournament to lose. Federer is 2.2 or 6/5 to win the title and given his indoor pedigree, along with the absence or Murray or Djokovic, I can't argue with that. I think aside from Federer, Tomic and Gasquet represent the biggest threat, particulary Gasquet if he can recover mentally and physically from taking the title in Montpellier. Gasquet is available at 20/1 which seems a tad high, but the smart money is on Federer here.
In San Jose at the SAP Open, Milos Raonic is looking for three titles in a row and it looks like he will be hard to stop. Raonic is the favourite at just over 2/1 and is the most likely winner from my point of view. He will have a tough match pretty early on when he will likely come up against Denis Istomin, a personal favourite of mine, but other than that, Sam Querrey will be his biggest threat before he reaches the final. Fernando Verdasco, Tommy Haas, John Isner, and Xavier Malisse all take their place in the bottom half with perhaps the Haas going furthest of those but overall I would be quite happy to take the 2/1 on Raonic here on a surface he likes in an event where he has only winning memories.
Finally, Nadal moves east to play in the Brasil Open in Sao Paolo. Before his loss to Zeballos I would have taken Rafa to win the title here but this evening he looked further away from his top form than he had all week. In Brazil, he will face much sterner opposition with home hope Thomasz Bellucci his likely semi final opponent before coming up against most probably Nicolas Almagro in the final. Nadal has a great record against Almagro but, outside Federer, Ferrer, and Djokovic, this man represents Nadal's greatest threat on clay, his favourite surface by far. Almagro is extremely competent on the red dirt and will relish facing a sub-par Rafa. Almagro will have to come through Nadal's conquerer Zeballos in his first match, followed by David Nalbandian just to get out of his quarter, but I fancy him to do it and I will take him to win the title here at about 5.80 on the exchanges.
Recommended bets:
Roger Federer to win Rotterdam @ 2.20
Milos Raonic to win SAP Open @ 3.20
Nicolas Almagro to win Sao Paolo @ 5.80
Bernard Tomic to beat Grigor Dimitrov @ 1.80 (Rotterdam)
Xavier Malisse to beat Go Soeda @ 1.76 (SAP Open)
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