Events / Sean Calvert / 23 February 2008 /

Sean Calvert preview the final of the Copa Telmex tennis tournament

The Copa Telmex clay court tournament in Buenos Aires is traditionally the preserve of home-born players and this year's renewal has proved to be no exception.

Argentineans have won this event in three out of the last four years and they provided three of the four semi-finalists this time.

The odd man out was Filippo Volandri, who was attempting to emulate countryman Alessio di Mauro, who reached the final here last year, however he found Jose Acasuso too strong in three sets.

All three Argentines were looking for their first Copa Telmex title and David Nalbandian showed his intent to secure his maiden ATP title on home soil by dismissing Juan Ignacio Chela 6-1, 6-2 in the semi finals on Saturday.

Nalbandian has now beaten Chela four straight times and goes into Sunday's final a strong favourite at [1.38] to take out Acasuso, who has a pretty respectable record in Buenos Aires, after reaching the final here in 2001 and the semis on three other occasions.

Acasuso lost out to Gustavo Kuerten in his previous title match here and on paper it looks likely that the same fate will befall him again against an opponent who lost just nine points on serve in his defeat of Chela.

However, those thinking of lumping on Nalbandian at a short price should consider that both players have won the same amount of clay court titles (three) and Acasuso has beaten his more illustrious counterpart before on the Argentinean red dirt.

Admittedly that victory came in 1999 when the pair were both juniors, but it does illustrate that for all Nalbandian's high profile victories, he wouldn't class clay as his best surface.

The world number 11 has a stellar record against arguably one of the finest exponents of the game of all time in Roger Federer, having been successful eight times in his career over the Swiss maestro, but they have all come on hard courts, barring the pair's initial meeting in 2002 and it could certainly be said that Nalbandian's career moments have come away from the red dirt.

Surprisingly, the two finalists have met just once on the main tour so far and Nalbandian's straight sets victory on the hard courts of Miami in 2005 would be expected, given that Acasuso is purely a clay courter, who shows no appetite for the game on any other surface.

Anyone witnessing Acasuso's feeble effort against Andy Roddick in last year's US Open, when he effectively quit on his stool, will be all too aware that the reason that the world number 51 is no higher in the rankings is that he does have a propensity to give up when things aren't going his way.

With this in mind a wager on Nalbandian in straight sets may be worth an interest at (current price), particularly given that Acasuso's last appearance in an ATP final ended in a 7-5, 6-0 loss to Tommy Robredo in Sopot last year.

That match was classic Jose Acasuso - he started well and should have taken the first set, but he failed to take his chances and after starting slowly in the second set he'd had enough and limped to defeat by way of a bagel.

An unpredictable character, who can fire winners for fun on his day, it would take a braver man that myself to put too much of the family silver on an Acasuso victory at 3.05, but that said, you just never know with the big Argentine - he has the talent, but only occasionally the application to go with it.

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