I disagree on the Blake match and I think he is a false, and wrong favourite. The head to head in my opinion means nothing as I dont think Davy has ever played any better than he has in the past couple of weeks, and for mine Davy is the more consistent of the two. I think Nadal lost the match the other night as opposed to Blake winning it. In both sets he was up a break at 4-3 and let down immediately after breaking allowng Blake back into the match.
The loser of the Nadal/Robredo match goes home and the fact that they get to start their offseason early and with a few hundred thousand in their pocket might not be seen as a bad thing, especially by Nadal. He has had niggling injuries during the second half of the season and im not convinced that he cares too much. I definitely wouldnt be taking -450 about him as his form has been very ordinary for 3 months now and in my opinion some of the smarter players have figured him out on the harder and faster courts, by attacking his weakish serve and not allowing him to dominate points and put him under pressure.
Ill be happy to watch the two Spaniards play and have a little something on Davy as an underdog. I would be having a much larger play if this was a Grand Slam or a Masters Event earlier in the season, but with this tournament being where it is on the calender and not meaning a lot, you can never be sure how serious the players take it, hence me being wary of opening the purse strings to crazily.
The loser of the Nadal/Robredo match goes home and the fact that they get to start their offseason early and with a few hundred thousand in their pocket might not be seen as a bad thing, especially by Nadal. He has had niggling injuries during the second half of the season and im not convinced that he cares too much. I definitely wouldnt be taking -450 about him as his form has been very ordinary for 3 months now and in my opinion some of the smarter players have figured him out on the harder and faster courts, by attacking his weakish serve and not allowing him to dominate points and put him under pressure.
Ill be happy to watch the two Spaniards play and have a little something on Davy as an underdog. I would be having a much larger play if this was a Grand Slam or a Masters Event earlier in the season, but with this tournament being where it is on the calender and not meaning a lot, you can never be sure how serious the players take it, hence me being wary of opening the purse strings to crazily.
syddiggers said:
How can you say head to head record means nothing? I've heard other guys say the same thing and I have to disagree. What else do you have to go one but their previous meetings. Granted...Davydenko was playing great coming into this tournament but it's tough beating someone you have never beaten before. Some might say Davydenko choked but it doesn't change the fact that he lost again to Blake.
Tchocky said:
Because there are a number of factors that come into play aside from the end result, and in my opinion they had nothing to do with Blake leading Davy 4-0. Davy kicked Blake's ass for 14 games and went back to his old ways and got tight and choked. He has never played better than the past month, and the last time they had played was 10 months ago ( Jan 2006 )in one of the first tournys of the new year after Davy had had a severely reduced 2 week offseason due to Davis Cup finals committments. That result had no bearing on yesterdays match. Different country, different conditions, different time of year, different surface.
If Davy hadnt of choked you wouldnt have made this post.
Federer led Roddick 11-1 h2h before they played yesterday and Roddick should have won that match. What do you make of that h2h? Roddick was a point away on three occasions of making that h2h irrelevant and it is vastly superior than the advantage that Blake holds over Davy.
H2H's do factor into rating matches but some people give them far too much credit, and without factoring the many different variables that can come into play.
