ATP Internazionali BNL d'Italia Betting: Back Kohlschreiber to continue Ramos's Masters misery

15May 2013

ATP Masters 1000

Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal make their 2013 Rome debuts today in the Internazionali BNL d'Italia and Sean Calvert talks us through their matches and selects his best bet for Wednesday at the Foro Italica..

It was one winner from two on Tuesday at the Foro Italico and those who took my advice of laying Nico Almagro at a short price were quids in.

The injury hampered Almagro was a shocking price at 1.22 and I'm quite surprised that he played at all, but play he did and he lost in straight sets to Julien Benneteau, who previously won a match in February in Marseille.

Unfortunately, Lukas Rosol threw in a shocker of a performance on serve and went down to Viktor Troicki despite taking the first set of their encounter on a non-televised court.

Wednesday's play features Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray and the latter takes on Marcel Granollers in an eminently winnable second round match, but I can't have Murray at 1.19 on clay.

Anyone taking the Scot at short prices on the dirt does so at their own peril and this could be a potential banana skin for Murray if his performances in Monte-Carlo and Madrid are any benchmark.

He played pretty well in defeat to Tomas Berdych in Madrid, but it's hard to see him figuring in the shake-up in Rome and I'd side with the Granollers +5.5 games if I were betting in this one.

Nadal takes on one of those flaky characters in Fabio Fognini, who lost from 1.01 in Madrid and this one will be well worth watching if only for Fogna's antics on court. They're meeting for the the first time and you would like to think that the Italian would at least want to make this close in front of his home fans.

Capable of sublime brilliance when the mood takes him Fogna could trouble Rafa today, but I wouldn't trust his highly questionable temperament to do so. The +6.5 games on the handicap appeals in this one at around 1.7.

It's not the most appealing of line-ups today from a betting perspective, with a whole collection of the most flaky individuals on show in the Eternal City on Wednesday, but I do like the chances of Philipp Kohlschreiber to take down Albert Ramos.

It comes to something when Kohlschreiber is regarded as one of the most mentally stable players on the schedule, but he was impressive in his straight sets win over Milos Raonic and has a fine chance of progressing against lefty Ramos.

The German has won five of his last six against southpaws on clay, with the one defeat coming at the hands of Nadal and Ramos is attempting to reach the third round of a Masters 1000 on clay for the very first time today.

Albert has won just three of his last 20 matches against top-25 ranked opposition such as Kohlschreiber and the German has been in the better form of late, reaching the final in Munich and semi finals in Barcelona on the clay.

I think that 1.75 is a fair reflection of Kohlschreiber's chances in this one and on what looks a really tricky day of men's tennis betting he is my pick.