Events / Sean Calvert / 01 April 2010 /

Sean Calvert knows that both Tomas Berdych and Fernando Verdasco are guilty of pushing the self-destruct button but a positive head-to-head record and the confidence gained from beating Roger Federer, makes the Czech the call.

There was a great late night show over at the Crandon Park Tennis Centre in Key Biscayne in the early hours, as Rafa Nadal bludgeoned his way past Jo Wilfired Tsonga and into the semi finals.

Sadly, Nicolas Almagro was unable to take the numerous chances that he created against Andy Roddick and in the end managed to beat himself, which brings us on to today's remaining quarter finals.

The first of which is between two other masters of the art of beating themselves, namely Fernando Verdasco and Tomas Berdych and this is not a betting match for the feint-hearted. In fact it's pretty much akin to betting on two flies crawling up a wall, but lets see what the key facts are in this one.

Berdych is slight favourite at [1.93], presumably based upon his thrashing of Verdasco at Indian Wells less than a fortnight ago and the Czech has an overall lead of 5-3 in their personal head-to-head series and a 3-1 lead on hard courts.

He also beat Roger Federer in the last round for the first time since 2004, so you would think that Berdych is a fairly comfortable favourite on the strength of that, but wait.. this is Tomas Berdych - a man capable of losing to just about anyone on his day, as losses to Peter Luczak, Evgeny Korolev and Ernests Gulbis so far in 2010 prove.

Verdasco, as usual, has had a very up and down year in 2010, highlighted by winning San Jose. But he has been struggling with injuries this year and you never really know how fit he is at the moment.

Even in this event, he's been great (against Cilic) and poor (against Melzer, who should have beaten him), so who knows which one will turn up today.

You have to go with the head-to-head on the basis that the match-up favours the Czech and he should be the more confident, having stuffed Verdasco recenly and having beaten Federer, so (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the bet has to be Berdych today.

In the late night match, Robin Soderling takes on Mikhail Youzhny and this looks like a good match-up for the Swede to progress to the semi finals.

Soderling has won their last three matches in straight sets and if Youzhny starts like he did against Wawrinka a few days ago, the Russian will be out of it very quickly indeed.

The [1.4] favourite looks to have finally shaken off his terrible Masters Series performances recently and he should have too much for Youzhny again today. I don't trust him to win it 2-0 though as his infamous mid-match lapses are still very much in evidence, as his match with Gonzalez highlighted.

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