Events / Sean Calvert / 25 October 2010 /

Sean Calvert tells us about one of the most unlikely comebacks taking place in Vienna this week and why Guillermo Garcia Lopez is a big price....

Tennis betting can be a cruel pastime sometimes. Take last week for instance.

I advised backing Mikhail Youzhny and Janko Tipsarevic in Moscow and the former pulled out with a virus, while the latter lost in the first round. And as if to rub salt into the wounds my tip of a few weeks ago in Bangkok, Viktor Troicki, won his maiden title!

Bit too late Viktor, but at least my strong advice to lay Nikolay Davydenko at all costs came good as the struggling Russian lost in the first round again.

These end-of-year events can be a bit of a nightmare to predict, as a quick look at the winners from this stage 12 months ago reveals.

St Petersburg was won by Sergiy Stakhovsky, while Lyon was Ivan Ljubicic's and Vienna was claimed by Jurgen Melzer - just the second title of his career for the world number 12.

That would have been a very nice treble right there, but anyway back to this year and it's the same three tournaments this week, but with the French event having moved from Lyon to a new venue in Montpellier.

The big news this week is that of 43-year-old former French Open champion Thomas Muster making a comeback to the ATP Tour at his home event in Vienna.

This has to be one of the most bizarre tennis comebacks of all time and it hasn't gone that well so far for Muster, who has lost six of his seven matches on the Challenger circuit since his return.

He's a whopping [500.0] to win Vienna, where he plays Ernests Gulbis, who is roughly half Muster's age. It will be interesting to see what happens.

The Bank Austria Tennis Trophy is played on indoor hard courts in the capital and Muster's wild card puts him in the bottom half of the draw along with the likes of last year's beaten finalist Marin Cilic, Gulbis, Marcos Baghdatis who reached the final in Moscow last week, Florian Mayer who was in the Stockholm final, and also a Spaniard with claims at a big price.

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez is never going to be a prolific winner on the tour, but his form lately on hard courts has been most impressive.

The Albacete resident came from a seemingly impossible position to come back and beat Rafa Nadal in Bangkok, where he won the title, and he followed that effort up by taking out Andy Roddick and Tomas Berdych in the Shanghai Masters where it then took Novak Djokovic to beat him.

He's at a career high 29 in the world and there's nothing of that sort of class in this Vienna field with the possible exception of Melzer and Cilic, but Cilic is in a desperately poor run right now and Melzer has not defended a title so far in his career.

Melzer could do with the ranking points in his unlikely, but mathematically possible, bid to get to the year end finals in London, but [4.5] seems a bit skinny for a man who still tends to have the odd moment when under pressure as he will be this week.

The Austrians don't have much to shout about in men's tennis and the crowd's expectations might be enough to trigger Melzer's questionable temperament this week.

Garcia-Lopez on the other hand is a decent price for a punt at around [17.0] and on that basis it's well worth risking that he can continue his recent good form.

Baghdatis and Mayer should be tired after last week, while Cilic has failed to make the last four of an event since Washington and Gulbis has had an awful hard court season with just one quarter final to his name.

In the top half, Melzer faces Nicolas Almagro, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Juan Ignacio Chela and Xavier Malisse, with James Blake being handed a much-needed wild card in the section as well.

I can see Kohlschreiber causing an upset in that half if he's fit and it's always an 'if' with the German, who's coaching partnership with Miles Maclagan begins in earnest this week.

Kohlschreiber has beaten Melzer in their two hard court matches to date and at around [13.0] he represents better value than the Austrian this week.

So, at a time in the season where new winners and more unlikely winners come to the fore, it's worth siding with Garcia-Lopez and Kohlschreiber in Vienna this week.

Recommended Bets:

Back Guillermo Garcia Lopez at [17.0]
Back Philipp Kohlschreiber at [13.0]

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