Thursday at the Mutua Madrid Masters was a great day of tennis, with one or two upsets thrown in along the way. I was delighted to see Kei Nishikori beat Federer in what we predicted would be a close match. I had been very impressed with Nishikori's striking of that ball all week and am just a bit raging I didn't have a stake on him to win the match! We won our recommendation on Stan the Man when he overcame Grigor Dimitrov on Sanchez-Vicario. Wawrinka went a set down and was available @ about 3.00 at one stage. We also recommended backing Verdasco and laying him off in what would be a three set win for Tsonga - and that is exactly what happened! And to add to what was already a good day, I got involved in the Murray-Simon match in favour of the Scot when Andy was a set and a break down. I backed him @ 3.20 and always thought he would win given his 10-1 complete ownership of Gilles in their head to head record. Murray did his best to lose it, throwing away 5 match points before claiming it on his sixth. All in all, it was a relatively poor performance from Murray, who could only capitalise on 3 of 18 break point chances. In other action today, Gimeno-Traver retired at 5-5 in the first set with Andujar so all bets were refunded on that one. Finally, Tommy Haas absolutely threw away his match against David Ferrer. I was on Haas and tried to lay it off several times while he was up a break in the third but I couldn't lay due to continuous price movements and then Ferrer ended up breaking him! Not a good match for me! Tommy was bad when the pressure came. He was 4-2 serving and 40-15 and got broken from that point to lose the set and match. Brutal. And it will set him back quite a bit because this was a mental loss more than anything else. He has never beaten Ferrer and on the evidence of today, he never will.
Now, looking forward to tomorrow's quarter finals. I think Rafa will ruffle Ferrer's feathers good and proper. There is nothing to see in that one. Expect a straight set beatdown for Ferrer. Likewise for Andujar in the other afternoon quarter final. Nishikori does literally everything better than Andujar and there is nothing to see in that one either. Kei in easy straights.
The evening matches are where is is all at tomorrow. I am going for Berdych to take out Murray. There are no odds up yet but I would expect the betting to be very close. Perhaps Murray will be a slight favourite, but I don't think he should be. They have played twice on clay with Berdych winning on both occasions. Murray has been playing tonight until after 1:00 am in a three hour match while Berdych was finished in the early afternoon after a routine straight set win over Anderson. Their head to head is tied at 4-4 but I think Berdych likes this tournament a lot. He is very well suited to the altitude here and the faster clay suits his game. I wasn't particularly impressed with Murray today and so, take Berdych to progress to the semi finals at the Scot's expense.
In the last match of the day, Wawrinka takes on Tsonga on a surface that, for me, Stan is much more suited to. The head to head however stands at 3-1 to Jo, and 2-1 on clay including their last two which is somewhat of a surprise. I think the main thing in this match up is the actual mental belief that Tsonga has that he can beat Stan every time. Stan can be mentally frail sometimes in terms of playing guys against whom he has an inferior record. I thought this betting would be pretty much even money shots all round, but Jo was 2.20 and is actually even longer now. If the betting on Jo goes to 2.30 or so I would recommend taking him. He has Roger Rasheed in his corner and it seems to be a good match up for both guys. It was a good win over Verdasco today and he knows he can beat Stan who had quite a late match against Dimitrov today. Both guys are hitting the ball well but I have a feeling Tsonga might take this one and I am going to back him. Stan has been playing a lot of tennis lately, including his title run in Portugal last week and it might just catch up with him. I also have a sneaky feeling Stan might win the first set and lose the match so I would recommend a small bet on Tsonga @ about 4.50 or so if he goes a set down here. Just a gut feeling. Take Tsonga in three.
Enjoy the tennis. What better way to spend a Friday night! :)
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