Nadal opens at a price that many will not touch.
Rafael Nadal's clay court betting bandwagon is about to lose some momentum due to his price to win the ATP Barcelona Open.
Nadal, coming on the heels of his crushing of Fernando Verdasco in the Monte Carlo Masters final (6-0, 6-1), has been priced at -400 (1/4; Stan James) to win in Barcelona. Basically that means that you have look at the other players in the draw and go with two or three of them as a counter to Nadal as you don't normally bet a player at -400 in tennis futures.
The ATP Barcelona Open is a 500-level tournament and it will not be contested by all of the top players. But that doesn't mean that there are not other big names in the draw besides Nadal and here are the odds with Stan James for the other 'favorites':
Robin Soderling +1400 (14/1)
Tomas Berdych +1600 (16/1)
Juan Carlos Ferrero +2000 (20/1)
Fernando Verdasco +2500 (25/1)
Fernando Gonzalez +2800 (28/1)
David Ferrer +4000 (40/1)
You could sprinkle all of the players listed above and should one of them win, you would turn a profit. However Ferrer and Verdasco probably should be avoided as they are both on Nadal's half of the draw and we saw that they had nothing of offer in terms of competing with the King of Clay in Monaco.
What you should do is look at the favorites on the opposite side of the draw and you have to like Juan Carlos Ferrero and Robin Soderling. Nadal will not be fatigued heading into Barcelona because he was so efficient in winning in Monte Carlo, however you can hope for a degree of fatigue late in the draw and that might give Soderling or Ferrero a chance for an upset should either of them make the final.
Ferrero did play Nadal the toughest in Monte Carlo and Robin Soderling was the man who beat Nadal in the French Open last year. At +2000 and +1400 they are not bad picks and those odds should shorten as they march toward the final.
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