AEGON Championships Betting / Sean Calvert / 09 June 2011 / 1

Fernando Verdasco has never been past this stage of the tournament at Queen's and has a poor record on grass in general. Today he's up against a former semi-finalist of this event and a runner-up at Wimbledon: so why is he the marginal favourite, asks Sean Calvert.

Yesterday's effort from Arnaud Clement was a bit on the disappointing side in a match where Marin Cilic was there for the taking, but at least David Nalbandian chalked up a straightforward win.

And I'm sticking with the Argentine again today in his match against Fernando Verdasco on Day Four at the Aegon Championships.

Nalbandian will start as underdog at around [2.16] against the Spaniard, having lost the two matches played against his rival so far - one on hard and one on grass.

The grass-court meeting was five years ago though and more of a factor today will be Nalbandian's superior ability on the lawns compared to Verdasco.

The former world number three shouldn't have a problem returning Verdasco's leftie serve, indeed Nalbandian has a great record against lefties of 37 wins and just 14 losses in his career.

He also has a 22-9 career record on the green stuff, compared with Verdasco's 25-17 record, which bears out the Argentine's suitability to the surface.

On paper, Verdasco's win over Nicolas Mahut in his opening match at Queen's looks good, but the Frenchman did suffer an injury early on in that one and the score somewhat flatters the Spaniard.

The man from Madrid also has a poor record at Queen's and he has never gone further than this stage of the tournament, while Nalbandian reached the semis on his only previous appearance here and is of course a former Wimbledon finalist.

Nalbandian's two wins here this week have been pretty straightforward, but he's only dropped serve once all week and served at a healthy 76% of first serve points won against Ilia Bozoljac on Wednesday.

So, with both the serve and return (he's created 17 break point chances so far this week) working well, this could be a tough afternoon for Verdasco.

The banker bet of the day has to be Sam Querrey to beat Britain's James Ward, who has surely had his moment in the sun with that great win over Stan Wawrinka in the previous round.

Wawrinka is a notoriously slow starter in tournaments though, with four opening round losses from his last six events and Ward will find it tough today against the power hitting of the big American.

Back the defending champion at around [1.25] to end Ward's week.

If you want to follow Sean's advice and back Sam Querrey to knock out James Ward you're definitely better off doing it on Betfair. If you backed last year's champion to win for £10 and he came good, you'd win £2.40 (after maximum commission of 5% was deducted) compared to just £2 with Unibet and £1.80 with Betclick.

For more information about how Betfair's prices compare to other bookmakers please go to https://betchecker.betfair.com/en-gb/football/

Recommended bet:
Back Nalbandian to beat Verdasco at [2.06]
Back Nalbandian and Querrey in a multiple

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1. Reannan | 09 June 2011

   Well u wer a bit wrong werent u???
   Come on Fernando!!!!!!

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