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Rome Masters Betting: Djokovic and Wawrinka meet by default in the final

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Sean Calvert was watching as the two semi-finals of the Rome Masters finished early, a huge disappointment for everyone watching. He looks ahead to the final now and the main thing is surely to see the players on court.

Novak Djokovic takes on Stanislas Wawrinka in the final of the Rome Masters on Sunday afternoon and doubtless the fans at the Foro Italico are hoping to see some tennis this time.

In a truly bizarre situation on Saturday afternoon, both semi finals ended in retirements and the sell out crowd witnessed only 10 one-sided games, as both Andy Roddick and Radek Stepanek both pulled out citing injury and illness.

Roddick's back went early in his clash with Wawrinka and he retired after just three games and then Stepanek, after a lacklustre first set in which he was bagelled by Djokovic, quit after the first game of the second set with what appeared to be heatstroke.

Djokovic then will be appearing in a final in the peak of physical fitness for once, having been handed another retirement in the quarter's by Nicolas Almagro and the crowd after suffering three early finishes in a row will be demanding to be entertained.

The omens aren't great however, as Wawrinka's sole ATP title in Umag in 2006 came by way of retirement by a certain Novak Djokovic, who pulled out during the first set breaker.

Assuming there are no further mishaps, this has the makings of a decent final and the Serbian is rightly favourite at around [1.33] to collect his third title of the year, after tasting success at the Australian Open and Indian Wells.

Other than the aborted Umag encounter, these two have never met on clay, but overall the world number three holds a 3-2 advantage over the Swiss number two and although I'm a big fan of Wawrinka's, it's hard to see how he can beat Djokovic on Sunday.

A great player to watch with a wonderful backhand, Wawrinka is guaranteed to be in the top 10 in the world whatever the result when the latest rankings come out on Monday and he's made steady progress this year, but Djokovic in a final is a tough proposition for anyone to take on.
The Serbian has nine final wins to his name and only three losses, one of which was the retirement in Umag and once he gets his teeth into a tournament, even the Federer's and Nadal's of this world have their work cut out to shake him off.

He has been serving very well this week and mixing the play up extremely effectively, to add to his powerful and accurate groundstrokes and it seems unlikely that Wawrinka will have the consistency in his eye-catching shots to keep up with Djokovic for three sets. Almagro, who has been in fine form on the red dirt this year certainly didn't fancy carrying on after taking a hiding in the first set of their match and that form is hard to ignore.

The Swiss has beaten the likes of Andy Murray, JC Ferrero and James Blake to get to the final and will hopefully put up a good show, but if there is one weakness in his game it's his temperament, which is certainly not as strong as that of Djokovic, who beat him in the Vienna final 6-4 6-0 last year.

The Serb also beat Wawrinka in straight sets on his way to the title at Indian Wells in March and a repeat of that particular outcome looks likely at around [1.73].

As far as the correct score betting goes, the 11 about a 7-5 Djokovic victory in the first set looks tempting and if you fancy Wawrinka to upset the form book, he will start at around [4.0] and should be in the region of [7.0] to [7.5] to win 2-0 or 2-1.

I'm sticking with 'Nole' to bring home the bacon though, perhaps in style by two sets to nil.