Indian Wells Daily Tips: Djokovic faces tough match against Kohlschreiber

Events / Sean Calvert / 15 March 2010 /

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The world two will need to be at his best to reach the fourth round

"The mercurial German hammered Djokovic in straights in last year's French Open, which shows how good he can be on his day and he has more than enough to push the Serb close here."

Novak Djokovic has developed an unnerving habit of dropping sets against less than formidable opponents. Today he will need to be at his best when he meets a mercurial German in the third round. Sean Calvert selects the best bets.

It was a very profitable Sunday night for readers of this column, as three out of my four suggested bets came in at Indian Wells.

Andreas Seppi's eight games against Andy Murray were enough to win on the handicap, while Nicolas Almagro dumped Ivo Karlovic out and in the process took over 24.5 games to do it, so that was a great end to the week.

Into the third round today then and a good place to start I think is the Novak Djokovic v Phillip Kohlschreiber encounter. Djokovic has acquired a disturbing habit of going AWOL in the middle of his matches this year and a perfect example of this was when he allowed Mardy Fish to bagel him in the second set of their match on Saturday.

The world number two has dropped a set in his last seven matches in a row and they haven't been against any great opposition. As well as Fish, Djokovic has dropped sets to John Isner (on clay!), Sam Querrey (also on clay), Mikhail Youzhny, Marcos Baghdatis, Ivan Ljubicic and Viktor Troicki - hardly an exalted bunch - and I can see today's clash with Kohlschreiber adhering to a similar pattern.

The mercurial German hammered Djokovic in straights in last year's French Open, which shows how good he can be on his day and he has more than enough to push the Serb close here. I don't trust him enough to back him to win this match at the tempting price of [5.0], but he should take a set, so a lay of Djokovic to win 2-0 at around [1.6] looks the way to go.

Elsewhere, Juan Carlos Ferrero is having an amazing 2010, with 14 consecutive match wins on the Golden Swing on clay in South America. The Spaniard won two titles and reached the final of a third during that spell and one of his victims in that run was today's opponent, Juan Monaco.

Ferrero has never lost to Monaco and it's hard to see how the Argentine can turn things around on hard courts, where Ferrero is equally effective.

Monaco posted a 3-6 win/loss record on outdoor hard last year and unless Ferrero is tired from his efforts so far this year he looks likely to take the win at [1.5].

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