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Tennis Channel Open Betting: Anderson the value in battle of the big guys

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Sean Calvert runs through the betting ahead of tonight's final

The ability of qualifiers to reach the latter stages of tournaments has been a feature of the last few weeks of the ATP tour and tonight's final of the Tennis Channel Open in Vegas will continue that trend.

Three players in the last month have made it through the preliminary rounds and gone on the to reach the final of tour events - Japanese teenager Kei Nishikori won Delray Beach and Sergiy Stakhovsky actually lost in qualifying, but got through as a lucky loser to claim the title in Zagreb.

South Africa's Kevin Anderson will be looking to add to that list when he takes on home favorite Sam Querrey on Sunday evening, after the world number 175 took out Robbie Ginepri in one of two semi-final upsets in a yet another tournament of surprises.

This event has been known to spring up the odd shock or two in it's time, with both Wayne Arthurs and Vinny Spadea lifting the trophy aloft within the last four years and indeed Guillermo Canas was the only seed to reach the quarter finals this time.

Shock, however, would be too emotive a term to describe the defeats for inconsistent types such as Fernando Gonzalez, the number one seed, who was taken out by Evgeny Korolevin in straight sets, despite needing 11 match points to finish the job.

Leyton Hewitt, who won three titles here in '07, '03, '00 had only lost three matches from 26 prior to this week and after dismissing Marat Safin 6-2, 6-1 in the first round was looking good for another strong showing, however Julian Benneteau had other ideas - taking the Australian out in straight sets in the round of 16.

Other seeds to fall early included Marcos Baghdatis and the in-form Michael Llodra and Canas must have been quietly confident after looking at the names of his remaining three opponents.

It wasn't to be however for the Argentinean, who does tend to play well at this time of the year, as he was stunned in straight sets by Querrey in the night match on Saturday.

The 20-year-old Californian, who was match point down against Seb Grosjean in the first round, battled back from set point down in the first to take out Canas 7-5, 6-2 and will face an opponent in Anderson, who had never won a match on the main tour before this week and traded at 80 at the start of the event.

Querrey, who was as big as 38 for the title, defeated Anderson in three sets in a challenger in Sacramento five months ago and is an uneasy favorite for this one at 1.62.

Anderson for his part is yet to lose a set in the event and ended the hopes of Ginepri, who has been in decent nick lately, having taken out Malisse, Baghdatis and Gulbis here and the Floridian has shown signs of a return to form in recent weeks, back on his favorite American hard courts, however Anderson was too strong in the semis' running out the 7-6, 6-4 victor.

This will be one of the tallest ATP finals of all time - Anderson is 6ft 7ins, while Querrey is just an inch shorter at 6ft 6ins - so a big serving encounter is to be expected and it could be worth having an investment on the first set going to a breaker, as it is the first final at tour level for either player and it could take a breaker to settle the opener after they exchange service bombs.

The set betting looks to be too tricky to call, as this appears an unpredictable encounter and given the way the tournament has gone, Anderson looks the best value at [2.38] outright to become the first South African to win an event on the main tour since Wesley Moodie in Tokyo in 2005.