Federer and Nadal set for another tough battle in the desert

14Mar 2013

ATP Masters 1000

Sean Calvert has seen a fair few Roger Federer versus Rafa Nadal matches over the years and he'll be up late again tonight for the latest instalment. He fancies this one to go long...

A fairly awful choke from Milos Raonic against an injured Jo-Wilfried Tsonga cost me my bet on Wednesday at the BNP Paribas Open.

Not for the first time this week one of the men let a good lead slip away and it looked all over a Raonic win when Tsonga went a set down and had treatment on his knee, but Raonic handed the Frenchman a lifeline with an awful service game in set two and then gave him the match in a similar style in set three, ending on a double fault.

That will be a painful loss for the Canadian, who normally possesses a more reliable temperament and Tsonga goes through to face Novak Djokovic, who had a 2am finish local time against Sam Querrey last night.

That match is for tomorrow though and today it's my outright tip Tomas Berdych taking on Kevin Anderson and if you're staying up late counting your Cheltenham winnings (or losses) then it's Rafa Nadal versus Roger Federer at 2am UK time.

Part 29 of this match-up is probably one of the toughest to predict, with both players not at their best physically.

Rafa still has issues with his knees and it's in the lap of the gods how well he is able to move on any given day. He was hampered last night against Ernests Gulbis, but was still able to edge that one and similarly Federer struggled again with his back and crept past Stan Wawrinka.

Obviously the match-up favours Nadal, who has won 18 of their matches lifetime to Fed's 10 and we can expect the same tactics again tonight, as Rafa will try and get the ball up high to Roger's backhand and control the point from there.

That said, Federer won here 12 months ago on a very windy day and Nadal has only played two competitive matches on a hard court since that day, so all things considered it's far from easy to pick a winner in this one.

If I were going on the outright match odds market I would favour the underdog purely on the match-up at around 2.16, but I can't see either player winning this comfortably unless injury intervenes and preference is for the over 22.5 total games at 1.86.