Events / Sean Calvert / 01 November 2010 /

There are some pretty tired legs out there right now on the ATP Tour but with a couple of places in the World Tour Finals in London still up for grabs, this is a big tournament for some...

For the second week on the bounce I had to suffer the indignity of a first round loser and an injury victim - tennis betting at the end of the season should come with a health warning.

I did suggest that Philipp Kohlschreiber would be a good bet in Vienna IF he remained fit and of course he scratched in the last eight with yet another ailment.

Thankfully, we've now seen the back of the ATP 250 events for the year and we're left with two ATP 500's and an ATP 1000 ahead of the World Tour Finals in London.

These events should run a little more to form and we have strong entries at both Valencia and Basel this week for the remaining 500's of the year.

Nominally there are still places up for grabs in London with strong performances this week and next, but who has the energy, desire and application left to make a move?

Let's concentrate on Valencia, which is enjoying its second year as an indoor hard-court event after switching venues and dates from its former incarnation as a clay tournament.

Andy Murray is top seed and defending champion here and he looks a strong favourite to retain the crown after a look at the draw.

The Scot is paired with Feliciano Lopez, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Verdasco, along with the resurgent Dmitry Tursunov and you would expect Murray to have too much for that lot.

Tsonga looks like his knees are going again after last week in Montpellier, while Davydenko is still struggling to win a match and Verdasco's recent results are awful.

You would expect Verdy to perk up a bit this week in his own country, given that he can still qualify for London, but the form isn't there and Murray is a confident pick from that half.

It's great to see excellent blogger/twitterer Tursunov back playing well again after a long battle with an ankle injury and let's hope for more of the same kind of form that he showed in St Petersburg last week.

In the bottom half I would expect a strong showing from Valencia resident Ferrer, who had a fine record in this event in its clay days when he posted a 12-4 mark.

The scurrying Spaniard has only lost one of his last 12 completed matches in Valencia and with the added incentive of a place in London at stake, I expect a well-rested Ferrer to play above himself this week.

He also has a 3-1 head-to-head advantage over Murray, but his three wins came on clay. Even so, Ferrer will be scared of no-one this week and at [13.0] he's a great back-to-lay bet.

Elsewhere in the bottom half, Ferrer faces the likes of Robin Søderling, Stan Wawrinka, Mikhail Youzhny, Gael Monfils and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, with Søderling and Wawrinka being the main threats for my money.

The Swedish number two seed is always dangerous on indoor hard, but he's had a disappointing hard-court summer and autumn for me, having not been past the last eight of any tournament.

Søderling also lost to Florian Mayer in the second round of his home event in Stockholm in his last appearance and although he has a great record over Ferrer, the Spaniard did beat the Swede in straights on hard recently in Beijing.

Wawrinka of course beat Murray in New York and hasn't really played much since - losing early to Nadal in Shanghai and Federer in Stockholm, so he'll be fresh for this and could go well at around [20.0].

Youzhny and Monfils will both be tired after their respective efforts in St Petersburg and Montpellier last week, with Youzhny the more likely as last year's Valencia runner-up and with a place in London a possibility.

So, this week's bets are Andy Murray to retain his Valencia crown at around [2.9] and David Ferrer as a back-to-lay investment at around [13.0].

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