Having conquered Federer, Gasquet primes for Berdych battle
Published:Anyone who watched Richard Gasquet’s three-set victory over Roger Federer would have marvelled at the class on show yesterday.
Dubbed the battle of the backhands, it was Gasquet who emerged victorious and the Frenchman’s reward is a tie with Tomas Berdych in today’s quarter-final.
Gasquet will be hoping to avenge his 2011 Australian Open defeat to Berdych and the clay courts of Rome offer the Frenchman his best chance of beating Berdych and is 1/1 to do so.
Berdych won their only meeting on clay last year, but clay is the Czech’s worst surface and the world number seven has lost to Thomaz Bellucci and Ivan Ljubicic in his last two clay tournaments.
Berdych is favoured to win at 8/11 but we fancy Gasquet to win another thriller and the Frenchman is 11/4 to do so.
Robin Soderling vs Novak Djokovic
Usually we wouldn’t highlight a 1/5 bet as being great value but we can’t help but think Djokovic is an incredible price to beat an out-of-sorts Robin Soderling.
Soderling has been in awful form this year and having struggled to two wins in the early rounds of this tournament, we can’t see any value in backing the Swiss at 10/3.
Djokovic continues to remain unbeaten in 2011 and the Serb looks untouchable at the moment, especially after last week’s Madrid Open final victory over Rafael Nadal – In the day’s final game get on Djokovic to win 2-0 at 4/7.
Andy Murray vs Florian Mayer
Murray was impressive in his straight sets win over Potitio Starace and the Scot is 2/9 to beat Mayer and advance into the semi-final.
Mayer has put in some strong performances on clay recently, including a final appearance in the BMW Open, but Murray will be the highest ranked player he’s met in this clay season and so we’re tipping the Scot to win 2-1 and 3/1.
A £10 stake on Richard Gasquet winning the Internazionali BNL d’Italia would return £340. Sign up here to take advantage of a free bet worth up to £30.
