Events / Sean Calvert / 14 June 2010 /

Sean Calvert looks at the best bets at Eastbourne in the last major grass court tournament before Wimbledon

It was a week of shocks on the grass at Queen's Club and Halle, as the top players in the world all had weeks they would rather forget.

Roger Federer was beaten by Lleyton Hewitt for the first time in 16 matches and also suffered his first loss at the Gerry Weber Open since Nicolas Kiefer beat him there in 2002!

And on top of all that, Rafa Nadal, Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray all failed to reach the quarter-finals at Queen's, so the grass court season got off to a sensational start.

The mini-season moves over to Eastbourne and S'Hertogenbosch, as the players look to get some more practice on the green stuff ahead of Wimbledon next week.

Eastbourne replaced the Nottingham event a couple of years ago and generally attracts a mixture of clay courters looking to adapt to grass and mid-ranked tour journeymen. It usually delivers a decent priced winner.

In 2009 Dmitry Tursunov was that man, however the Russian has had a nightmare year with an ankle injury and doesn't return to defend the title he won by defeating Frank Dancevic in the final.

The top seed this year is Nicolas Almagro, who has been in good form lately, but who has a career record on grass of 3-6, so we won't be expecting too much from him.

The Spaniard heads the top half of the draw, but I prefer the claims of Denis Istomin in that section at the handy price of around [36.0].

The man from Uzbekistan has impressed me on grass over the last year or two and I was courtside in Eastbourne last year when he defeated Queen's Club champion Sam Querrey from a set behind.

That was a very solid effort from Istomin, who went on to lose to Tursunov in the quarters in a tight match and his effort against Nadal at Queen's last week was very creditable in a close three-setter.

Others to consider in that top half of the draw would be James Blake, Kevin Anderson and Dudi Sela, but Istomin stands out for me.

Blake hasn't played since Miami, but does have a creditable grass court record, having reached the final at Queen's last year and he could still be a factor in this type of event.

Anderson should be decent on grass with that serve of his coming down from his 6'8" height, but he has a 2-4 grass record and probably doesn't move well enough to be a major factor.

Sela produced a typical Sela display last week by beating Roddick in straights before losing to Rainer Schuettler for only the second time in their six meetings. The Israeli remains too inconsistent and is yet to win an event at Tour level, but he could also be dangerous this week.

In the bottom half, Feliciano Lopez will have plenty of supporters after his win over Nadal at Queen's, but despite his much-discussed grass court skills, he is yet to reach a grass court final.

Schuettler will probably go well again this week, as grass suits his game and his consistency and good movement give him a distinct advantage on the surface, but his head-to-head with Lopez is poor (7-1 Lopez).

Gilles Simon was in the top 10 in the world as recently as October last year, but the Frenchman has been plagued by a right knee injury for some time and makes another comeback this week.

Simon does have a decent grass court record (12-10 overall) but his fitness must count him out as far as betting is concerned this week.

One to consider in the bottom half at a decent price is Leonardo Mayer, who reached the quarters here last year before losing out in a close one to Dancevic and the 23-year-old, who is at a career high of 51 in the world, is not without a chance.

Finally, the frustrating Michael Llodra is the last one for the shortlist in that bottom half of the draw.

The serve-volleying lefty has a tendency of either losing early or going all the way in tournaments and he should have a better grass court record than his 11-8 stats on the surface suggest.

He is playing here for the first time since losing early in 2002, but he is a former winner and former finalist at S'Hertogenbosch, so the skills are there somewhere.

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