Madrid Masters Daily Tips: Day two

Events / Ben Caudell / 12 May 2009 /

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You can follow the action at the Madrid Masters on Betfair Live Video - in the meantime, Ben Caudell arms you with the best bets.

Unfortunately for our bets, Jo Wilfried Tsonga withstood the challenge of former No.1 Marat Safin to book his place into the second round of this year's Madrid Masters.

World No.20 Safin captured the Madrid title back in 2004, however after the match he stated that he didn't feel comfortable at any moment in the game. Tsonga will now face Ivan Ljubicic, a player he has previously met only once before, in an epic four set encounter at this year's Australian Open which included three tie break sets.

There were wins for Stanislas Wawrinka 6-2 6-0 over qualifier Marco Crugnola, Simone Bolleli defeated Juan Ignacio Chela 7-5 7-6 and German qualifier Tommy Haas battled to a 6-2 5- 7-5 win over last year's French Open quarter-finalist Ernests Gulbis.

The biggest upset of the day came in the women's event; Serena Williams withdrew from her first round encounter against Italian Francesca Schiavone having lost the first set 6-4. This meant anyone who had backed Schiavone had been paid out - her top price pre-match was a tasty [8.0]

Today's Selection:

James Blake (USA) v Victor Henescu (ROM)
Blake seems to have banished his losing cobwebs and is now showing some good signs on the clay court. Having reached last week's Estoril Final with decent clay court wins over the likes of Frederico Gil, Marc Gicquel, Florent Serra, and a three set win over Nikolay Davydenko there are a lot of positives for the American to take into his match against Romanian Victor Henescu. One of those positives is the fact that Blake has never lost to Henescu, leading their head-to-heads series 3-0. Henescu has had a topsy turvy start to 2009, winning just nine matches out of 22. Blake needs to start gaining a few more ranking points for him to break into the top 10, his current ranking of 16 is the worst it has been since February 2006 when he was ranked 21 in the world.

Selection: Back James Blake @ [1.62] to win match

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