ATP Sony Open Betting: Cilic to make life tough for Murray in Miami

28Mar 2013

ATP Masters 1000

Tennis expert Sean Calvert has found his form with four straight winners at the Sony Open. Can Andy Murray find his and get past the awkward Marin Cilic in Key Biscayne tonight? Sean picks the best bets..

Tommy Haas's comfortable win over Gilles Simon meant another winning wager for this column on Wednesday as the minus 2.5 games bet on the German proved successful.

Haas continued his excellent tournament with a 6-3, 6-1 over the Frenchman in which the 34-year-old didn't face a break point.

It's the remaining two quarter finals on Thursday and Andy Murray takes on Marin Cilic for the 10th time in their careers in Key Biscayne at 7pm UK time, with the Brit a 1.20 shot to record his eighth win over the lanky Croatian.

Cilic has often caused Murray problems, but only once has he been able to maintain his level for long enough to actually beat the world number three and that was in New York back in 2009.

Many will recall the most recent meeting between the pair, in which Cilic was a set and a break ahead at Flushing Meadows last summer before faltering and Murray ran away with the last two sets.

This will be their first ever meeting on outdoor hard in a three set match and Murray will need to improve upon the patchy performance against Andreas Seppi in his fourth round match.

The number two seed never looked likely to lose that match, but a more capable opponent than Seppi might well have caused some problems for Murray, whose forehand was off and his serve helped him out on several occasions.

Cilic served very well in his odds-against win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, dropping just 16 points in total on his own serve, although it must be noted that Tsonga was once again pretty poor in his returning.

For such a big man Cilic's serve isn't that potent and Murray should be able to carve out the chances on this slowish surface to break the Croatian enough times.

But we haven't really seen the best of Murray at either Indian Wells or here and although he should get past this hurdle I'm going to side with Cilic who gets 4.5 games on the handicap.

My concern with this wager is if Cilic loses a tight first set and collapses as he has done in the past, with Murray winning final sets against Cilic 6-0, 6-3 (twice) 6-2 and 6-1 in his most recent five wins over him.

Most of those were in Grand Slams though and over two sets Cilic should at least have enough resolve to keep it tight.