ATP Tour Betting: Home-boy Soderling is a big lay in his own backyard

Events / Sean Calvert / 13 July 2009 / Leave a Comment

Sean Calvert is unimpressed by Swede's record in his home tournament and will be taking the French Open finalist on at 3.25.

Last week's tips showed a massive profit, particularly in the Davis Cup, where I correctly predicted the winner of all four ties, whilst the Newport advice wasn't too shabby either.

Mardy Fish's retirement from the Hall of Fame Championships to replace Andy Roddick in the Davis Cup showed an instant profit on my advice to lay Fish and my other bet, Fabrice Santoro, could have been backed in excess of [10.0] and layed at around [3.5].

And my advice of backing Israel, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Spain worked out at a whopping [12.0] as a Davis Cup accumulator, so armed with some very tidy profits the next stop on the ATP Tour is Bastad for the Swedish Open.

The last three weeks in July are the final opportunities of the year for the clay courters to earn their corn before the tour switches to hard courts for the rest of the season, so with precious ranking points at stake the red dirt specialists will be giving it their all.

This year's Bastad draw has thrown up a nice looking opportunity for a Spaniard to prevail in Sweden for the fifth consecutive year and at the current prices it is surely also worth laying the home hope.

Tommy Robredo has won here in two of the last three years and for my money the layers could well have it wrong pricing up the world number 14 at around [7.0].

Robredo looks to have a straightforward passage directly into the semi finals with only the likes of Alberto Martin ([140.0]), Bjorn Phau ([160.0]) and Christophe Rochus ([120.0]) to overcome prior to a possible last four clash with Fernando Verdasco.

The Hostalric born star holds a 4-3 head-to-head advantage over his fellow countryman and crucially has prevailed in the pair's two meetings on the red dirt.

The courts in Bastad suit Tommy's game much more than Verdasco's, as can be highlighted by the fact that the highest ranked player that Verdasco has ever beaten here is Thomas Johansson (ranked 97) in 2004, so the value clearly lies with Robredo.

Another potentially tricky hurdle for the Madrid man to overcome could be Juan Monaco ([16.0]).

The Argentine has been playing well on the red dirt in the smaller events this year and holds a 5-2 overall head-to-head record over Verdasco, including 3-1 on clay.

Despite the fact that Verdasco is in the top ten in the world, he has only ever won two tournaments (Umag in 2008 and Valencia in 2004), compared with Robredo's nine ATP titles and he continues to flatter to deceive.

Another who looks set to fall into that category is number two seed and tournament favourite Robin Soderling, who is huge lay material at a miserly [3.25].

This year will be Soderling's eighth tilt at the Swedish Open title and in the preceding seven attempts he has bettered the quarter-finals only once and that was back in 2004.

Hardly the form of a short priced favourite and the layers look to have overreacted by some distance to Soderling's run to the French Open final, which has all the hallmarks of a one-off performance.

In addition to Soderling's poor previous efforts here, the world number 12 has the worst of the draw, with a host of decent clay court opponents to overcome.

Marat Safin ([50.0]), Julien Benneteau ([90.0]), Jurgen Melzer ([16.0]), Marcel Granollers ([130.0]), Nicolas Almagro ([11.0]), Florent Serra ([46.0]) and Frederico Gil ([60.0]) are better than most of the opposition in the top half of the draw and any of these could take out Soderling on their day, so the Swede will find it tough to pass the last eight once more.

It must also be remembered that, apart from Roland Garros this year, all ten of Soderling's career finals have come indoors and he has lost in all but three of those finals, so his career record on clay is not the best.

To sum up then, I would recommend an outright bet on Tommy Robredo at a price of around [7.0] and a saver on Juan Monaco at around [16.0], combined with a lay of Robin Soderling at [3.25].

This week's other ATP event is the Mercedes Cup and the value appears to lie in the top half of the draw, where Gilles Simon is the number one seed.

Philipp Kohlschreiber is on top form at the moment, having defeated Novak Djokovic at Roland Garros and he followed that up with fine performances at Halle and Wimbledon.

The German built on those efforts with two great wins in Davis Cup over Verdasco and Robredo last week and providing he can stay fit, which is always an issue with Kohlschreiber, he could be big at [5.0] to claim another home title to add to his Munich clay win of 2007.

A lively outsider in Stuttgart could well be Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who has been playing well since his claiming his first ATP title in Kitzbuhel in May. At around [80.0] and also in the top half of the draw, he could be one to spring a surprise.