ATP Mutua Madrid Masters Betting: Rafa to progress but not at a canter

11May 2013

ATP Masters 1000

We've reached the semi-final stage of the 2013 Mutua Madrid Open and Sean Calvert is sweating on his 67.0 tip Tomas Berdych, who has reached the last four along with Rafa Nadal...

Friday was an excellent day at La Caja Magica for both my daily and outright tips, with Stan Wawrinka and Tomas Berdych both advancing to the semis.

Despite not taking to the court until not far from the witching hour in Madrid, Wawrinka completed a three set win that simultaneously landed a winning bet and made the Swiss stay on court until 1.40am, which helps my outright on Berdych.

Stan tried his best to blow it when failing with three match points for a straight sets win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, but his late night and injured neck means that Berdych is favourite to make the final having been backed at a high of 75.0.

There is a small problem of course and that comes in the form of one Rafael Nadal, the Spanish master benefitting from another David Ferrer choke, who led Rafa by a set and 4-2 on Friday before winning just two more games in the match.

A Ferrer win would have been perfect for Berdy backers and the chances of shock semi-finalist Pablo Andujar pulling out the win today are pretty slim to put in kindly.

Andujar took down Kei Nishikori on Friday and is a 23.0 shot to beat Nadal when their semi-final begins at 2.30pm UK time today.

The wild card does at least possess a decent serve and he did push Nadal fairly hard in their only previous meeting, which was on the slower clay of Roland Garros a couple of years ago.

Indeed, Andujar led by 5-1 in the third set of that match before crumbling in a Ferrer-esque fashion to lose it in a breaker and it is fair to say that Rafa has not been at his best this week in the altitude of Madrid.

He doesn't look at home on the slippery clay and quick conditions and he's getting mighty annoyed when he receives code violations for his ridiculously slow play, so unless Andujar chokes in the biggest match of his career he should have enough to win with a 6.5 game start.

Pablo should enter this with a mindset of having nothing to lose and in theory all the pressure should be on Nadal, who I expect to win, but perhaps not in the procession that is the obvious choice.