Spaniard travels to Paris in search of a ticket to London

After breaking his losing streak in Valencia last week, Fernando Verdasco faces a stiff test in Arnaud Clement in the BNP Paribas Masters second round in his attempts to enter the top eight for the ATP world finals.

The event in Paris is the penultimate tournament before the ATP finals at London’s O2 arena, offering Verdasco his last chance to nudge ahead of Thomas Berdych, Andy Roddick or David Ferrer.

Verdasco ended a four match losing streak in Valencia last week before being dumped out in the second round by Giles Simon, but despite his poor form, he is as short as 2/5 to beat Arnaud Clement.

Clement upset the odds in the first round by defeating Verdasco’s countryman Feliciano Lopez, and the Frenchman is a decent price at 7/4 to beat Verdasco.

The two have met twice before, the last time in the 2009 Australian Open where Verdasco won in straight sets, but Clement won their only other previous encounter in Marseille in 2006, also in straight sets.

It could well be the tiebreaks that separate these two players and over 22.5 games is available at 5/6.

Tomas Berdych vs Florent Serra

Tomas Berdych is currently sixth in the world rankings but hasn’t sealed his spot in London yet, and a poor performance in Paris could pave the way for Verdasco to qualify.

But the Czech star is 4/9 to beat Serra and defeated the Frenchman when they last met in March.

But Serra holds an outside chance of beating Berdych having defeated him on the only other occasion when the two met in 2006, but Berdych is 11/10 to win in straight sets and should do so comfortably.

Local favourite Gael Monfils is also in action today and is 1/5 to beat Benjamin Becker. See the full BNP Paribas Masters betting odds market here.