Events / Sean Calvert / 07 June 2010 /

Fresh from tipping beaten Roland Garros finalist Robin Soderling at a huge price, Sean Calvert turns his attentions to the grass court season and more precisely the tournament formerly known as the Stella Artois, where Andy Roddick is the outstanding candidate to win it.

Roland Garros served up a fantastic profit last week as one of my outside tips, Robin Soderling, stormed to the final at the advised odds of [130.0] and made it a great week, despite his defeat in the final.

The red dirt has had its day for a while now though and we have no time to reflect on that, as the grass court season, such as it is, has already started.

The traditional opening to this mini-season is of course Queens Club and the Aegeon Championships (yes, that's the Stella Artois to me andprobably a lot of others), which has attracted several of the world's best for 2010.

Rafa Nadal hot-foot's it from Paris to London and is the number one seed, while Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick are the other big names in the field.

After his usual half-hearted effort in the clay season, Roddick looks the most likely of these and the best value bet at around [4.4] with question marks over the others.

Nadal looked very impressive when swatting Soderling aside in Paris, but conditions should be a little too pacy for him at Queens, where he can be hurried into more errors and at around [4.5] he doesn't represent value after that French Open win.

Murray is the defending champion here and a return to grass will undoubtedly suit the Scot's game, but he comes to London in his worst run of form in recent memory and he doesn't have the kind of easy draw that he had last year.

Murray beat Mardy Fish, Juan Carlos Ferrero and James Blake in 2009's latter stages, which is the tennis equivalent of Chelsea playing Norwich, Swindon and Walsall to land an FA Cup.

This year though, Murray will have to go through Nadal and Marin Cilic to get to the final and I'm not big on his chances of achieving that at a price of around [5.0].

As for Djokovic, well, the last year has been a struggle for him and the clay court season didn't exactly improve his confidence, with a defeat to Jurgen Melzer in Paris from two sets up that must have drained the Serb's spirit yet further.

Djokovic has been paired in the same half of the draw as Roddick and he should make the semi finals, as there is little of note in his quarter, other than the hit-and-miss Sam Querrey, who recently admitted that he's having no fun at all playing tennis right now.

All of which leaves us with Roddick as the main man, having had a nice rest throughout the red dirt season and if he can repeat his exploits on grass from last year, he looks likely to claim his fifth Queens Club title.

The American looked set to play Murray in the final last year until he turned his ankle against Blake, so he's entitled to some better luck in the 2010 renewal.

Outside the top five seeds, the depth of quality is really poor, as is highlighted by Janko Tipsarevic and Julien Benneteau sneaking into the top 10 here and this is generally not an event that is won by an outsider.

Murray last year became the only player to have lifted the trophy having never been a world number one since Scott Draper caused a shock in 1998, and clearly the best of a poor bunch of longshots this year is Richard Gasquet.

The mercurial Frenchman still has the game to win these best-of-three events, as he proved in Nice last month and he could be the one to cause Roddick the most trouble in that quarter at an outright price of around [20.0].

So, in conclusion I'll be investing some of my Soderling winnings in a Roddick win at Queens Club, with perhaps a saver on Gasquet.

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