Indian Wells Daily Tips: Ljubicic hopes fate will help him edge final

Events / Sean Calvert / 21 March 2010 /

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Ivan Ljubicic hopes that he will have more than his birthday to celebrate tonight

"The value again is likely to be in the total games market, where the figure should be over 23.5 games. That's the best bet for my money, at around [2.0] in the final of Indian Wells 2010."

Both players have upset the odds to reach the final but who will take the honours in Sunday night's match? Sean Calvert selects the best bets.

It was quite a day at Indian Wells on Saturday, as the two favourites were beaten in the semi finals in topsy-turvy three setters. Rafa Nadal was matched at [1.02] before losing to a resurgent Ivan Ljubicic, while Robin Soderling was defeated by Andy Roddick in a bizarre match that neither player seemed to want to win.

As far as our bets were concerned it was one winner and one loser in the Roddick v Soderling encounter which, as predicted, went well over the total games figure of 22.5. Sadly, the Swede had another of those mental walkabouts that so often cost him and in this case also cost me.

So, today's finalists are two players no one would have predicted at the start of the tournament. Indian Wells will be won by a player from outside the top four seeds for the first time since Alex Corretja claimed the crown 10 years ago when the final was played over five sets.

To highlight how unusual today's finalists are, this is the first Masters Series event since Paris in 2008 that one of the big four of Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have not been in the final and you have to go back to Cincinnati 2006 for the same situation on an North American hard court.

Roddick won that day in Cincy in 2006, beating Juan Carlos Ferrero and he starts as [1.46] favourite today against Ljubicic [3.15]. There's a fair history between these two; they have played 12 times, with Roddick leading 9-3 in the head-to-head and their last meeting in a main tour event was here at Indian Wells in 2007.

The American won it in two close breakers and I can see another tight encounter here with serve clearly being key in this match-up. Ljubicic reckons he's playing the best tennis of his life and with it being his birthday as well, he'll believe that this is his week and that confidence might take him all the way.

I don't like Roddick outright at [1.46]. He didn't play well against Soderling, who imploded, and the value again is likely to be the total games market, where the likely figure will be over 23.5 games. That's the best bet for my money at around [2.0] in the final of Indian Wells 2010.

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