French Open Betting / Ben Caudell / 23 May 2009 /

Ben Caudell begins a two week stretch of daily French Open tips with a look at the men's winner market and a first round match.

The highlight of the clay court season, the French Open is finally upon us. Defending champion and the number one ranked player in the world, Rafael Nadal is attempting to become the first man in history to capture five consecutive Roland Garros titles.

Amazingly the 22-year-old Spaniard is unbeaten at the French Open in his last 28 matches and is 150-5 on clay since 2005. Not surprisingly Nadal is the clear favourite to win his sixth title in Paris at [1.46], a feat that only Bjorn Bjorg has matched having already won six times during his illustrious career.

This will be the first time Roger Federer has competed at the French open as the number two seeded player. The Swiss master will be full of confidence coming into this year's event after his straight sets win over Nadal at the Madrid Masters a week ago.

Nadal and Federer have dominated the Grand Slam events for many years, Since Nadal's first Grand Slam win in 2005, he and Federer have combined to win 15 of the last 16 Grand Slam tournaments (except 08 Australian Open - Djokovic). During that stretch, Federer has won nine Grand Slam titles compared with Nadal's Six.

I will once again be posting my daily tips throughout the duration of the tournament, my main aim will be to find the best value bets of the day for both the Male and Female competitors starting today with Sundays daily tips.

Today's Selections: Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) vs Ivo Karlovic (CRO)
Karlovic, the towering giant with a monster serve has never been past the second round at Rolland Garros and has a pretty mediocre Grand Slam record, his best ever result was reaching the last 16 at Wimbledon back in 2004.
In comparison, Lleyton Hewitt's record is only bettered by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer out of all the players that are competing at this year's event. The ageing Aussie has been performing admirably this year on the red stuff and most importantly has a tournament win under his belt (Houston) back in April this year.
Karlovic enjoys a 3-0 head-to-head record over Hewitt, although none of these matches were played on clay. The Croatian struggles with his concentration during five set matches and his serve starts to show cracks during the latter stages of a match. Against a battler like Hewitt this will surely become another early Grand Slam exit for the player who without his sublime service would be ranked outside the top 200.
Selection: Back Lleyton Hewitt @ [1.6] to win match


Men's Winner Market - My best bet in the outright winner market has to be on Fernando Gonzalez. Gonzalez looks to have a straight forward passage into the semi-finals. He will more than likely meet either Mikhail Youzhny or Gilles Simon in the last 16 and then potentially Andy Murray in the quarter finals. The Chilean's recent form on clay is in a different league to his second quarter competitors and he often performs at his highest level during Grand Slam events, reaching the final in 2007 at the Australian Open and quarter-final at last year's French Open. There is definitely value backing the Chilean at a tasty [150.0]. This price is too big to ignore...
Selection: Back Fernando Gonzalez @ [150.0] in the outright winner market and lay bet off if he reaches Semi Final @ approx [33.0]

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