Events / Sean Calvert / 26 April 2010 /

After taking a break by not playing Barcelona last week, Rafael Nadal is back to the action at the Rome Masters and is raring to go in a tournament where he has dominated in recent years. Away from the odds-on favourite, Novak Djokovic may be the best bet, says Sean Calvert.

Rafa Nadal's late withdrawal from Barcelona last week meant that all bets were off and the market was re-formed, so consequently it was a bit of a damp squib in terms of punting.

We make the short journey from Barcelona to Rome this week and it's another of those Masters 1000 events and this time more of the major players are on display, so it should be a fascinating weeks tennis at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

The Foro Italico has a brand new 10,500 seater stadium instaled for this year and those lucky enough to be courtside will see the return of world number one Federer, who begins his preparations for Roland Garros at an event he has never won and holds a pretty average 19-9 win/loss record in.

The Swiss has reached the Rome final twice, but not since 2006 and he has been beaten by the likes of Filippo Volandri and Radek Stepanek here in recent years.

Federer [7.2] should at least reach at least the quarter finals in 2010 though, as he has been handed what looks to be a very straightforward route to the latter stages by a kindly draw.

Paired with hard court specialists Sam Querrey, Marin Cilic and Ivan Ljubicic in the top section of the draw, Federer faces a potential rematch with Marcos Baghdatis in his first game whilst Italian hope Volandri is also in that section.

Volandri though is a pale shadow of his former self and to be frank, his former self wasn't great, but he did have his moments every now and then, but a current world ranking of 149 following a drug ban shows where he's at right now.

The adjacent section of the draw looks far more competitive with Nadal facing competition from Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych, Juan Monaco, Stan Wawrinka and Jurgen Melzer, all of whom can be effective on the red dirt.

Nadal, as you would expect, has a great record here with a 22-1 win/loss record to go with his four titles. The only man to beat Nadal here is Juan Carlos Ferrero, who prevailed over his David Cup team-mate in 2008.

After taking that rest following his Monte Carlo win, you would expect Nadal to ease straight back into winning ways as he tries to tie the Masters Series wins record of 17 currently held by Andre Agassi and he is around [1.58] to do just that.

A Nadal v Federer semi final would be well worth watching of course. They haven't faced-off for almost a year, when Federer beat Nadal on clay in the Madrid Masters before going on to claim the Roland Garros crown, so that one will be eagerly anticipated.

All of this means that the bottom half of the draw is where the back-to-lay value can be found, as Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have been far from their best recently and there are some big prices on offer about some of those in this section.

Murray is in a wretched run of form and he won't have enjoyed seeing his name paired in the same section of the draw as David Ferrer and Juan Carlos Ferrero, as well as Jo Wilfried Tsonga, but he should at least have enough to beat first round opponent Andreas Seppi, who Murray has regularly beaten recently. A price of around [55.0] also
tells you how little is expected of the Scot this week.

Ferrer and Juan Carlos Ferrero are trading at around [55.0] and [46.0] respectively, but neither has a good recent record here and Ferrero lost to Thiemo De Bakker in Barcelona and might be a bit leggy at the moment after a big effort early in the season.

Djokovic does have a very good record here, having reached the final last year after winning it in 2008 and the Serb has only ever lost to Nadal here in his 11-2 career win/loss record in Rome.

His 2010 has been very scratchy though and having been hammered 6-2, 6-2 by Fernando Verdasco in Monte-Carlo, Djokovic won't appreciate being drawn against the same player again here.

The world number two plays the winner of two inconsistent types, Janko Tipsarevic and Jeremy Chardy first up and an early threat may come from Thomaz Bellucci, but the key to this section of the draw is the fitness of Verdasco.

Verdasco's win in Barcelona combined with his run to the final in Monte-Carlo will surely see the Madrid man put up a weaker effort here and with his good association with Rome, expect Djokovic to perform better this week with little apart from Verdasco to concern him.

Despite the Serb's recent hit and miss efforts, I have a feeling that with points to defend he'll knuckle down and show his true ability this week at an event he likes and the draw has given him a decent chance to get that much-needed confidence boost and he looks the back-to-lay bet at the Rome Masters at around [13.5] with Nadal being once again unbackable at his short price.

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