Murray and Isner to ease through in Sony Ericsson Open
Published:Andy Murray kicks off his Sony Ericsson Open campaign off today, taking on Colombian Alejandro Falla in a second round tie that the Scotsman is 1/20 to win.
Falla, who is currently ranked at number 67 in the world, is 15/2 to pull off a shock victory, but with the 29-year-old suffering six defeats in his ten matches this year, often to competitors of a lesser standard than Murray, it is difficult to have much confidence in backing the left-hander.
You can instead invest in the 1/7 odds for Murray to win the first set of the match and go on to complete victory, thus adding to his 14 wins from 17 matches so far in 2012.
Alternatively, there is slightly better value in taking Murray to complete a straight sets triumph, though even this outcome is very shortly priced at 1/6, such is the expected dominance of the world number four.
Elsewhere, John Isner faces a tougher task in the form of Nikolay Davydenko, especially considering that the Russian is an outdoor hard court specialist.
With Davydenko’s record on such a surface impressive, some punters could be tempted to get behind him to claim success in Miami at 12/5, though caution should be taken in light of Isner’s effective and impressive tennis of late.
The American has entered the top ten rankings for the first time in his career, and after conquering Novak Djokovic en route to an Indian Wells final appearance recently, the 26-year-old American has outlined a determined to rise even higher with a good performance in this tournament.
He can kick that off by beating Davydenko at 3/10 in this second round clash, or you could instead back him to win in straight sets, with a 2-0 success a decent price at 5/6.
