Back Robin Soderling to comfortably beat Tomas Berdych today

Yesterday our best bet of the day won again, although again it was a close run thing, with Katarina Srebotnik and Nenad Zimonjic losing the first set of their mixed doubles final, and going 4-0 down on points in the third, before rallying to take the match 4-6, 7-6, (11-9).

Still, a win’s a win, and that makes us 5 out of 6 at this year’s French Open for ‘bet of the day’.

Today, it’s the men’s singles semi-finals, and it looks something of a mis-match between Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych. Berdych is a decent enough player, but he has been lucky at Roland Garros so far.

His two wins of note came against Andy Murray, who is poor on clay at the best of times and woefully out of form at the moment. Murray would have lost to anyone in the last 16, and it just so happened that Berdych was the man he was drawn against.

Mikhail Youznhy is not the player he used to be, and his quarter-final against Berdych showed that. The Czech still had to beat the Russian, but it was too easy for him.

Robin Soderling, however, has been playing brilliant tennis over the last two weeks.

He beat Roger Federer in 4 sets, and took the same amount to beat clay court expert Albert Montanes, who would both, arguably, have beaten Berdych.

He has the experience of a French Open final from last year, and he looks totally at ease on the centre court in Paris. He will beat Berdych this afternoon, although 1/2 (Coral) isn’t a greta price.

Instead, back the Swede to beat a 3.5 game handicap, at SkyBet. He has covered this line in every one of his matches so far at Roland Garros, and the key to this bet is that Soderling has not yet needed a tie-break to win a set. That means that he could, conceivably, drop a set, as he did against Federer and Montanes, and still cover the handicap, thus winning our bet.

Recommendation

Games Handicap (-3.5) – Robin Soderling (5/6, SkyBet)