Almagro may be a good value bet for those that don't mind punting from long distance.

Nicolas Almagro may only be ranked 18th on tour at the moment but it is hard to find a player, besides Rafael Nadal, that could be considered a better clay courter at this time.  Almagro is fresh off of a clay court title at ATP Bastad where he beat Robin Soderling in the final and the win capped a very impressive clay court campaign from the last few months.

Conventional wisdom would put Soderling as the second best player on clay at the moment as he has made back to back finals at the French.  However when one looks back at the 2010 French Open, it was Almagro who played Nadal the toughest as they played three tough sets with 2 tiebreakers in the quarterfinals.  When Robin Soderling faced Nadal in the final, it was much less competitive.

In fact Almagro was one of the only players to take a set off of Nadal during the clay court swing and Almagro has actually beaten Robin Soderling in three consecutive clay court matches.

Almagro, who will be 25 in August, is fairly one dimensional as he has no noteworthy Slam results except for at the French Open.  For the 2011 Roland Garros tournament Stan James currently have Almagro at +5000 (50/1) and those odds should be expected to shorten before the tournament gets underway.

Almagro made the 4th round of the Aussie in January and that was a career best placement in the tournament.  He's playing the best tennis of his career and if he can keep it up he might be more like a +2000 underdog for the French next season.

Long term punters should be sprinkling him now keeping in mind that there's no way to know what kind of condition Nadal will be in at any time in the future.

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