Rakuten Japan Open Betting: Murray too short, Berdych and Bernard are the bets

Tomas Berdych will be carrying Sean's money this week
The world's best players are in the Far East for the Asian Swing and Andy Murray is defending his Rakuten Japan Open title, but at 2.3411/8, Sean Calvert is looking elsewhere for his bets
The winning run came to an end last week in Kuala Lumpur for this column when Milos Raonic could only reach the quarter-finals in Malaysia in the opening week of the 2012 Asian swing.
The tour moves on from Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo and Beijing this week and with Novak Djokovic odds-on in China in an event where he is yet to lose a match. My outright bets this week take place in Japan.
The Rakuten Japan Open is an ATP 500 tournament that was won last year by Britain's Andy Murray, who returns this year for his first tournament since winning the US Open.
Murray's defence of his Tokyo title isn't going to be easy, with an opening match against Gael Monfils and with the likes of Raonic, Janko Tipsarevic, Stan Wawrinka, and Gilles Simon also in what looks the toughest half of the draw.
The Scot trades at around 2.3411/8, which is a little on the short side for me considering his draw, which features many more dangerous opponents than the bottom half. A better value wager for my money is to take a chance on Tomas Berdych, who should be out to even the score with Murray after coming off second best in ridiculously windy conditions at the US Open.
That New York semi-final should be eating away at the Czech, who in my view always had a very decent chance in that match until the gale force winds intervened and played right into the crafty Murray's hands.
Berdych is available to back at around 5.49/2 to claim his second title here after his initial victory in Tokyo back in 2008 and the big Czech possesses a 10-3 record overall in this tournament.
His draw looks more comfortable than Murray's with the main opposition likely to come in the shape of home hope Kei Nishikori, Juan Monaco, Nico Almagro or Bernard Tomic.
If Tomic shows the kind of form he fleetingly displayed in Bangkok last week then he has a real shot at a big price of around 50.049/1, but he's 50s for a reason and it's because it's impossible to tell if he's going to turn up and put the required effort in or not.
Nishikori has a good record on hard courts against Berdych, but it's far from certain that the pair will meet in the last eight as they are seeded to do given Kei's struggles in his home tournament.
The 22-year-old has a 2-4 record in Tokyo and is yet to beat anyone ranked better than 60 in the world in this tournament, plus he has a tricky match first up against fellow Japanese player Go Soeda, who beat Nishikori comfortably in Atlanta a few months back.
His loss from 5-2 up in the deciding set against Monaco last week won't have done much for his confidence either, but you would at least think he'll be trying his hardest to impress here.
Monaco may not have too much in the tank this week after a few long matches in his run to the title in Kuala Lumpur last week and he also has a tough clash first up against Grigor Dimitrov to contend with.
Almagro is making his debut in Tokyo this week and you would think he'd be motivated by chasing a place at the year end championships, but his record at this stage of the year isn't great as his 1-3 record in the week's other tournament in Beijing highlights.
The Spaniard is in the same mini-section as Monaco, Marcos Baghdatis, and Tomic and it's certainly worth having a small back-to-lay investment on Tomic at that 50.049/1 on the off chance that he does reproduce the level he showed last week.
If the Aussie does manage it then he could easily go deep here, but as there's as much possibility of him losing first up to Dmitry Tursunov it would be wise to keep stakes quite small on that one.
But Berdych is the man that I'll mainly be siding with this week in Japan.
Recommended Bets
Back Berdych at 5.49/2
Back to lay Tomic at 50.049/1