Events / Sean Calvert / 07 February 2011 /

My saver bet on Kevin Anderson proved to be good advice last week, as the South African claimed his first ATP title at the SA Open at a price of [5.5].

Let's take our profits from that into this week's big event, which is the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, played indoors on one of the quickest surfaces on the tour.

It's where Andy Murray makes his next appearance after becoming the first player in history to lose his first three Grand Slam finals in straight sets.

Bearing in mind how long it took the Scot to recover 12 months ago after a similar Australian Open final defeat, I'm not going to be taking the [3.75] about Muzza repeating his 2009 victory here.

Neither will I be backing 2010 winner and second favourite, Robin Soderling, largely due to the fact that he could be vulnerable first up against home hope Robin Haase, who took out Murray in straights in this in 2008.

Haase showed glimpses of his best in Melbourne and is a dangerous player over three sets with his big game.

Other threats to Soderling in that top half of the draw are Mikhail Youzhny, David Ferrer, Marin Cilic, Viktor Troicki and Jurgen Melzer and any of these could continue the curse of the number one seed.

Only Roger Federer (in 2005) has won this as top seed since Michael Stich did it way back in 1994 and Soderling's effort in Melbourne didn't inspire confidence, so I'm giving the Swede a swerve.

Ferrer's playing at the top of his game right now, but he's never been past the quarters on this pacy surface in four attempts.

Cilic is still nowhere near his best, while Melzer's confidence will have taken a knock in Melbourne whilst Troicki is an injury concern, but he and former winner and indoor king, Youzhny, look the best of the top half at around [36.0] each.

Youzhny won this in 2007 and has an 11-5 record here to go with his 102-63 career indoor record and four indoor titles, so he has to be respected in this environment.

In the bottom half of the draw, I like the look of another former winner, who is available at a whopping [60.0] for the title this year.

Michael Llodra had a fine season in 2010, with two titles and a fine run in the Masters Series event in Bercy in similar conditions to these and at that price over three sets on a court that will suit him, his serve/volley game stands a chance.

At the minimum, Llodra should be a good bet to take out Nikolay Davydenko in their first round clash at around [2.5] after beating the Russian in these conditions in their last two meetings.

Murray on the other hand has a tough first round draw against old foe Marcos Baghdatis, who leads the Scot 2-1 in their head-to-head series.

Should he win that, Murray will most likely have to beat Florian Mayer, then Gilles Simon, who showed superb form against Roger Federer in Melbourne.

Also in that half of the draw are Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Davydenko, Ivan Ljubicic, Tomas Berdych, Grigor Dimitrov, Sergiy Stakhovsky and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez amongst others.

Berdych showed some good form in Melbourne, but hasn't reached an indoor final since 2005. He also has a losing record against first round opponent, Garcia Lopez too, so that one could be interesting if the Spaniard shows up.

Tsonga does have a better indoor record than Berdych and this event
should suit him, but he has it all to prove after slipping down to 18 in the world after injury, so it's probably best to just monitor his progress this week with future betting opportunities in mind rather than diving in.

Recommended bets:

Back Llodra at [60.0]
Back Youzhny at [36.0]

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