Events / Ed Hawkins / 10 April 2011 /

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will battle it out on the dirt over the next few weeks for the right to be French Champion and World Number One but it's not necessarily just about those two, says Ed Hawkins. Dismiss Nicolas Almagro at your peril...

It is hard not to be a cynic when one is a sports bettor. The winners, of course, are great, but it's the losers which erode the compassionate part of the brain. The loss of form or chasm of mental weakness which opens up at the crucial time to inexplicably down your wager. For eons afterwards you will stare at your research jottings to
try to fathom how it went wrong.

When you are at a loss to explain it you will resolve to never, ever forgive the perpetrator. Novak Djokovic and I have had that sort of rocky relationship. He torched his bridges back in 2009 when he lost in the third round of the French Open, having been primed for a final appearance with two semi-final efforts in the previous two years. He blamed 'mental weakness'. That quote went straight up on a fridge
magnet.

Bless him, the Serb is doing his best to get back into my good books. A 24-game winning streak this year no less. He was beginning to turn my head once more. Then I logged onto the web to see he had pulled out of the Monte Carlo Masters with a knee injury. The pessimist couldn't help but wonder 'Is that a chink in the cerebral armour?'

Should we wonder whether Djokovic is protecting himself, even a little bit? The Masters is a key pointer for Roland Garros and the last thing the man they call the Joker - he is at least deserving of a new moniker - needs is a loss on clay to Rafael Nadal ahead of a Grand Slam which will shape a thrilling battle for the world No 1 spot.

Nadal, or the 'terracotta terror' as he should be called, planted the seeds of doubt after Djokovic beat him in Miami. When asked whether he would be usurped as numero uno, Nadal cannily replied with an answer of which the gist was 'wait and see how he does on clay'.

Of course with the tussle between Djokovic and Nadal taking up all the headline space, there is little room for anyone else. Roger Federer is twiddling his racket on some Swiss mountain top humming the Heidi theme tune while Andy Murray is just furious, no doubt stomping around his pad requiring a fist pump and a 'come on!' to complete the most
basic of household chores.

It has always been that way with tennis. Whether it has been McEnroe v Bjorg, Becker v Edberg, Sampras v Agassi or Federer v Nadal who have their contests up in lights, the rest appear just to be a supporting cast, bitching in the wings about how it 'should be them out there'. For the bettor, too it can be a dangerous mindset. When trying to find
a winner for a tournament it can be easy to overlook the valueoptions, particularly players who are worthy of a back-to-lay for a points swing which makes a Nectar card look worthless.

Nicolas Almagro is a case in point. Observers work themselves into a frenzy about Nadal's genius on clay but it is rare that anyone will discuss who the second-best player in the world on the surface is. Some will claim it is Robin Soderling, the Swede who has been mashed in the last two French Open finals. The smart money may be on Almagro.

The Spaniard beat Soderling in three consecutive clay court matches, took Nadal to two tiebreaks in last year's French and was one of the only players to take a set off Nadal in the clay court swing. This year he has appeared in three consecutive clay finals, winning two, to give him a 13-1 record.

Almagro is currently [120.00] on the winner's market for Paris. It is the sort of price that, cynicism firmly put to the back of the mind, is difficult to ignore.

Ed Hawkins is the current Sports Betting Writer Of The Year.

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