Men's French Open Betting: Rafa to have few problems seeing off Klizan

Rafa Nadal should make light work of Martin Klizan today

The weather forecast looks a tad grim around Roland Garros on Thursday, but we're hopeful of some play and tennis expert Sean Calvert brings us the latest tips in the men's singles...

Day four of the 2013 French Open was a good one for this column with two winners from my three recommended bets on the day.

Unfortunately, young Aussie star Nick Kyrgios was injured and unable to put up much of a fight in sets two and three against Marin Cilic, but Viktor Troicki defeated Daniel Gimeno-Traver and Michael Llodra did enough against Milos Raonic.

Troicki should have won all five sets he played against the Spaniard, but somehow contrived to lose two of them, while Llodra took the second set against Raonic to land the 3-0 lay of the Canadian.

Thursday's schedule at Roland Garros features both Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic and the former takes to Court Suzanne Lenglen at around 1pm UK time depending upon the length of the two women's matches beforehand and I expect Rafa to dispose of Martin Klizan with less fuss than was the case with Daniel Brands in round one.

Rafa is 36-4 on clay against left handers such as Klizan and two of those losses go back to 2003 and 2004, with the defeat to Horacio Zeballos coming when he was returning from injury and the other loss was to Fernando Verdasco on the infamous blue clay of Madrid last year.

Klizan is a talent on his day, but his days are few and far between and I cannot see him having the consistent shot-making ability or raw power required to trouble Nadal in their first career meeting. The Slovakian has done little on clay this season and has never faced a top-five ranked opponent in his career so far.

He'll do well to cover a +9.5 game handicap today and the Nadal minus 9.5 games looks the bet in this one at around 1.910/11.

On Court 7 in the afternoon there's what should be an entertaining clash between Robin Haase and Jerzy Janowicz and the layers appear to have overrated the Pole in this one.

Janowicz had a good win over Albert Ramos in the last round, but the Spaniard does have the quitting gene when things aren't going his way and the first two sets were very close.

Haase has a bigger game than Ramos and can cause some damage if the Pole doesn't serve his best and the Dutchman is a very capable player on the clay. Now that he's got the monkey off his back by finally winning a tie break he should at least take a set in this and I like the +4.5 games about him today at 1.9210/11.

Recommended Bets
Back Nadal -9.5 games to beat Klizan at 1.910/11
Back Haase +4.5 games to beat Janowicz at 1.9210/11