The day has come for the final game of the SkiStar Open, with basically the best ranked players in the tournament reaching the final stage. There is little to say about yestarday's semifinals, were both Soderling as well as Ferrer swept the floor with their opponents. Quite unexpected was the loss of focus from Nicolas Almagro, whom bearly won 3 games in the second set, and even worse, a Tomas Berdych whom managed to take a single game from an unleashed Soderling.
As a result, we have: Robin Soderling (#5) and David Ferrer (#6), each of them looking for a new title here in Bastad. Bookies consider Soderling favorite in this final, and there are some arguments to that. Soderling has an overall of 9 victories to 4 over Ferrer and strictly on clay, 3 wins to 2.
The advantage of Soderling is his very strong serve, which brought him no less than 351 aces this year (Ferrer only managed to serve 146 aces), however, statistically, both players seem to be in the same or close parameters. Furthermore, Ferrer has a better percentage on games won than Soderling on clay this year: 81% (22-5) as opposed to 75% (15-5).
I do believe we are going to have a balanced game this time, and I would not be surprised if it ended in 3 sets. The last encounter in Bastad, back in 2008, also ended in 3 sets, giving victory to Ferrer.
So, lets hope we see some high quality tennis from both players and here are my picks:
1. Over 9.5 games first set @1.57, 5 units, www.bet365.com
2. Over 2.5 sets @2.25, 2 units, www.bet365.com
3. Robin Soderling to win @1.61, 4 units, www.bet365.com
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