Saturday was a fantastic day for the blog at Roland Garros. We went for Nishikori over Paire, who won @ 2.20, we had Youzhny @ 1.90 over Tipsarevic which also won, and we had John Isner @ 4.00, who ultimately lost 10-8 in the fifth to Haas but who I layed off @ 1.11 when leading 4-1 in the fifth! So all in all it was a pretty perfect day. To be honest, I though the Nishikori - Paire match was pathetic stuff. They looked like two guys who were trying to lose rather than win, and I wasn't impressed by either. Paire has a club-level forehand and Nishikori is lacking in heart and bottle. Nishikori will go no further. We are now at the round of 16 stage, and so there are four men's matches tomorrow, and four on Monday. I have to say, from a betting point of view, there is very little interest tomorrow on the men's side pre-match. All the ones I am interested in like Youzhny - Haas and Wawrinka - Gasquet are on Monday.
There is only one match where I will be recommending a pre-match bet tomorrow and that is on the first men's match up on Lenglen. David Ferrer takes on the giant South African Kevin Anderson in what might be a closer match than people think. Anderson has been one of the most improved players on tour over the past year or so, and indeed he beat Ferrer in Indian Wells earlier this season. His serve is enormous, and he moves extremely well for such a big man. His forehand is a huge weapon too, and, unlike someone like Raonic who has a poor backhand, Anderson has no obvious weakness, as his backhand and net-play are solid too. Anderson actually took out Raonic in straight sets in the last round and looked impressive in doing so. I think Ferrer will win their match tomorrow. He is a strong favourite to do so and I think only Rafa, Nole, or maybe Federer can beat him on this surface, but I am going to lay Ferrer to win 3-0 @ 1.97 on the exchanges which means we need Anderson to get only one set in the match. I am pretty confident he will manage that.
Elsewhere tomorrow, I expect wins for Almagro over Robredo. Almagro leads the head to head 5-0 so I can't see any way that Robredo can win that match, especially after his five set win over Monfils in the previous round. Federer takes on Simon in the last match on Chatrier, and, given Federer's form so far this tournament, it would be hard to see him losing. I do think Simon can trouble him though, despite the scoreline of their match in Rome. And the only other men's match tomorrow is Tsonga v Troicki, which I would take Big Jo to come through in maybe 4 sets. Just because there are so few men's matches given the stage of the tournament we are now at, I am going to predict a winner for each of the women's matches from here on out too. Tomorrow I will take Kuznetsova over Kerber, Williams over Vinci, Errani over Suarez-Navarro, and Radwanksa over Ivanovic. There is actually some value to be had in those matches as Radwanska @ almost 1.80 is appealing along with Kuznetsova @ about 2.30 to beat Kerber.
Finally, in the men's outright market, today saw some significant price changes as Nadal has drifted from 1.80 to 2.20 and Djokovic has shortened from 3.30 to 2.90. This is because Rafa was far from impressive, again, against Fabio Fognini, while Djokovic continued him impeccable form in this tournament with a straight set demolition of Grigor Dimitrov. Djokovic is looking far superior for me and I think if their semi-final match does materialise, then we could be recommending a Serbian win, based on what we have seen so far. We will leave it for the time being and take the opportunity to see both guys again on Monday. Until this time tomorrow, all the best and enjoy tomorrow's tennis. Come on Anderson! Over and out :)
No comments:
Post a Comment