Tennis Betting – Melbourne Draw May Have Been Kind To Murray

Here we go again – will 2010 prove to be another year waiting for Andy Murray to finally come of age and land a Grand Slam, or will he prove all of his doubters wrong? I’m going to stick my neck out and say it will the latter because, put quite simply, Murray is simply too good not to make the breakthrough sooner rather than later.  The 22-year-old Scot shows no sign of being under pressure to end a frustrating run of near-misses in the tournaments that really that matter and his patience could well be rewarded in the Australian Open at Melbourne over the next couple of weeks. Hardcourt is undoubtedly Murray‘s favoured sphere (five of his six tournament wins on the ATP Tour last year were on the surface) and he looked in pretty good nick in last week’s Hopman Cup, despite a surprise singles defeat in the final to Tommy Robredo. Some might argue that dropping to fifth in the world rankings has done no favours to Murray in Melbourne. Holder Rafael Nadal is now a possible quarter-final opponent with US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro seeded to await the winner of that one in the last four. However, there are big questions marks against those two at present. Del Potro, a general 6-1 chance, pulled out of last week’s AAMI Classic with a wrist injury and has been nursing a sore knee for the past few weeks, while reigning champion Nadal hasn’t won an ATP title for more than eight months. The Spaniard (4-1 with totesport), despite holding a 7-2 career verdict over Murray, clearly doesn’t get around the court as quickly as he did before last year’s serious injury and, though still having all the shots in his arsenal, may be vulnerable against Murray‘s mobility. Of course, even if he reaches the final, the Scot (13-2 with betfred, Victor Chandler and Paddy Power) will still have to beat either Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic. Federer (3-1 with boylesports and extrabet) is bidding for an amazing 16th Grand Slam, having bounced back from defeat in an epic final against Nadal in Melbourne 12 months ago to win at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. He also lost out to Djokovic here in 2008, however, and maybe this tournament comes a little too early in the season for him nowadays. Indeed, I believe Djokovic may be the one to emerge from the top half of the draw. He’s been in cracking shape on the ATP Tour over the last few months, winning in Beijing, Basel and Paris at the latter end of 2009, and betfair‘s 8-1 is a cracking bet considering he’ll make the semi-finals at least on all known form. Backing the Serbian and the Scot at either end of the draw seems a sensible policy to me with doubts over their three main rivals.