Events / Sean Calvert / 31 January 2011 /

With the excitement of the Australian Open over for another year and with pockets reasonably full after a good fortnight in Melbourne, it's back to basics on the ATP Tour, for San Calvert.

There are three tournaments to choose from this week, starting on Monday, in Johannesburg, Santiago and Zagreb and it's the former that looks to be where the value lies.

The defending champion here is the much-maligned (by me, and rightly
so) Feliciano Lopez, who as number 31 in the world is the highest ranked player in this event and therefore top seed.

He's not favourite for this though and for once I'm going to agree with the layers' pricings.

It's a far cry from the Rod Laver Arena here at the SA Tennis Open with the likes of world number 83 Rainer Schuettler sneaking into the seedings, but this represents a outstanding chance for a first ATP title for the number three seed.

No longer the highest ranked player without an ATP Tour title to his name (that honour currently resides with Florian Mayer), Janko Tipsarevic has become somewhat frustrating to follow.

A case in point was in Melbourne, where the Serb fell to Fernando Verdasco after being two sets up and holding three match points, but he gets one last chance from me here. If he can't win this then you feel that he perhaps never will.

The draw sees Tipsy paired with the likes of Michal Przysiezny, Florent Serra, Yen-Hsun Lu, Dustin Brown and Simon Greul and of these only Lu has any real hard-court pedigree, but the Serb has a 2-0 record against him.

Tipsarevic has by far the best recent outdoor hard-court form in this field and the lowest ranked player he's lost to in these conditions since the start of the US hard-court swing last summer is Kevin Anderson - which brings me on to my saver bet.

As Tipsy is about as reliable as a 1976 Austin Allegro, it might pay to have an alternative and the home crowd favourite Anderson looks the one to be on at around [5.5].

The 6' 8" Johannesburg-born 24-year-old has been moving up the rankings in the past 12 months on the back of some decent hard-court results and he is now just outside the top 50.

Some of Anderson's wins in that time have been over players such as Sam Querrey, Thomaz Bellucci and our top seed Lopez on hard-courts, so the ability is there and with the home crowd behind him he has a chance of reaching his second tour level final.

Anderson's win over Lopez came just a matter of weeks ago in Brisbane and it was a comprehensive 6-3, 6-1 victory in a tournament where Anderson was only beaten by Andy Roddick in a deciding set semi-final clash.

Coincidentally, Anderson and Lopez are drawn to meet each other again here, as both are in a top half of the draw that also features Schuettler, Adrian Mannarino, and Dudi Sela.

Lopez lost to Bernard Tomic in Melbourne and has just two tour level titles to his name in 13 years as a professional, so I would be actively laying the [6.0] about him retaining here.

In the bottom half of the draw, Tipsarevic faces Przysiezny and all I need to say about the Pole is that he's lost in the first round (or in qualifying) in each and every one of his last 14 ATP Tour or Grand Slam matches on hard-courts.

In fact, Przysiezny has never won a single game above Challenger level on a hard-court on the ATP Tour, so the fact that he's number eight seed here tells you all you need to know about the lack of quality on display in Johannesburg this week.

Recommended bets:
Back Tipsarevic outright at [4.5]
Saver bet back Anderson outright at [5.5]

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