Slow conditions suit Nalbandian over Janowicz

9Mar 2013

ATP Új

David Nalbandian enjoys the conditions at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells and stands a fine chance of beating Jerzy Janowicz today according to Sean Calvert...

It's been a tricky start to the 2013 BNP Paribas Open, but today's play at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden offers plenty of opportunity to put things right.

Finally, the powers that be have generously decided to allow live coverage of the matches, so tonight's play will be live for UK viewers on Sky Sports 4 from 9pm.

Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal are both in action tonight and both have tricky openers, with Federer facing Denis Istomin and Nadal up against Ryan Harrison.

I wouldn't put too much faith in Federer at 1.07 these days and Istomin on his day can be a dangerous opponent, so it might be worth a cheap lay of the Swiss in the third match of the day on Stadium One.

Nadal is playing his first competitive match on a hard court for almost a year, but I'd be surprised if Harrison was able to land a knockout blow on the Spaniard.

But I do like the chances of David Nalbandian to ease through to the next round at the expense of Jerzy Janowicz in the second match scheduled on Stadium Court 2 tonight.

The Argentine enjoys the conditions here and reached the quarters 12 months ago before losing a close one to Nadal and he began well again this time around with a comfortable win over Marcel Granollers.

With ranking points to defend, Nalbandian should be up for this and he handles the big servers well. In addition, Janowicz is playing his first ever match at Indian Wells and I don't see the slow, high bouncing conditions suiting his game.

Indoor hard appears to be the Pole's conditions and I like the 1.72 about a Nalbandian win tonight.