Events / Sean Calvert / 12 April 2010 /

Rafael Nadal returns to the glamorous Monte Carlo for a tournament where he has just needed to turn up to win in the past. As an added bonus for him there's no Roger Federer to beat this week but the big value lies elsewhere, says Sean Calvert.

We were almost seriously in the money last week at the US Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston, as my long shot Wayne Odesnik was narrowly beaten in the semi finals.

At a price of [125.0], that would have been a great boost as we stay on the red dirt this week, but we switch to the more ostentatious setting of Monte-Carlo for the third Masters 1000 event of 2010.

The Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters has been Rafa Nadal's own personal event in the last few years, as the Spaniard has won it for the last five renewals in a row and has a stellar 29-1 record here.

You have to go way back to 2003 for Nadal's only loss here, which was to Guillermo Coria, and he has been installed as the [1.67] favourite to make it six a row in 2010.

And in truth there doesn't look a great deal in the field to overly concern the Spaniard, as Roger Federer has opted for Rome, Estoril and Madrid as his warm-up clay court events prior to the defence of his French Open crown, but there could be a bit of big priced value around.

Number one seed here, based purely on world rankings, is Novak Djokovic, who at least gave Nadal a good match in the final here last year before fading in the final set, but whose form has been wretched of late.

Bad defeats in both United States hard court Masters 1000 events won't have done much for his confidence and it might pay to go for a bigger priced player in Djokovic's half of the draw.

Fernando Verdasco played very well at times in Miami, before losing out in a battle of wills to Tomas Berdych (of all people) in the quarters, but he has been given a decent chance of finally beating his last eight Masters hoodoo here at around [25.0].

The seed in Verdasco's quarter is Marin Cilic, who has a very average clay court record and while there are a few dangerous floaters in that section, such as Berdych, Richard Gasquet, and Feliciano Lopez, you would expect Verdasco to have enough to reach the semi finals.

The adjacent section of the draw is very interesting, as it contains Djokovic, David Nalbandian, Mikhail Youzhny, Tommy Robredo and Stan Wawrinka, and any of these could make it to the last four.

Wawrinka defeated Victor Hanescu in the Casablanca final on Sunday and coincidentally plays the Romanian again in the first round here in Monte-Carlo, where the Swiss looks the best value bet in that section at around [60.0].

The bottom half of the draw features both Nadal and Andy Murray, who has taken a wild-card here to try and to gain some form and confidence following a poor few weeks on the North American hard courts.

Don't expect too much from the Scot here either, as he has a tricky-looking draw in which he must face the winner of Philipp Kohlschreiber and Thomaz Bellucci before possibly meeting old foe Jurgen Melzer in the last eight.

Murray did make the semis here last year before running into Nadal and the adjacent section to the Scot's looks weaker with David Ferrer [44.0] my pick to reach the last eight.

Nadal faces several fellow clay court specialists in his section - among them Eduardo Schwank, Juan Monaco, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Nicolas Almagro, but Nadal's early matches look straightforward before a likely meet with Monaco in the last eight.

Nadal and Monaco have met twice on clay with the former winning easily both times, so you would expect the world number three's toughest challenge to perhaps come from Ferrero, who has been playing superbly on the red dirt in 2010.

Ferrero won the pair's last meeting, which was on the clay of Rome in 2008, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he could do it again, with Nadal looking a bit leggy towards the business end of the last few tournaments.

Ferrero is back up to number 15 in the world now and has only lost to the best here - Nadal and Federer on his last two visits - so if anyone's going to give Nadal a game it will probably be Ferrero, who is a decent long shot at around [81.0].

With Nadal being roughly the same price as he was when he was winning events for fun (remember he hasn't won an event since Rome 2009) I wouldn't be too quick to pile in to that [1.67].

Instead try one of Wawrinka, Ferrero, Verdasco or Ferrer with smallish stakes and hopefully we can have another excellent run with an outsider at a big price this week.

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