Men's French Open Betting: Bautista-Agut has the class to shock Berdych

Bautista-Agut can stun Berdych in Paris on Friday

It's the start of the men's third round on Friday, with plenty of big names in action and Sean Calvert fancies one to fall today...

I managed to get one over the line yesterday in Paris on another day of strange results and peculiar performances and Andy Murray did as I had predicted for an unprecedented fifth straight time.

Fernando Verdasco almost failed to make the overs, having dropped the first two sets to Pablo Cuevas, but he eventually came back to win in five to buck a remarkable trend of matches ending in straight sets this week.

Of the 32 second round matches played, an astonishing 23 were straight sets wins, which is far in excess of the average of between 10 and 16. Over backers, including myself, have done their money this week, for sure.

Dominic Thiem showed the spells of talent we expected without being able to hang on to a 3-1 third set lead against Rafa Nadal, which meant a loss for my 3-1 Nadal wager and some rare stability from Fabio Fognini scuppered my 3-0 lay of the Italian - that one lost in a third set tie break.

Friday's play features Novak Djokovic, Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and of these surely Berdych will be the one to be tested the most.

Roberto Bautista-Agut is a different animal in 2014 to the one we've seen in previous seasons and although he's perhaps more effective on a hard court he certainly has the goods to trouble Berdych, who is also arguably better on hard.

RBA has already beaten Berdych at a big tournament this year when he took the Czech out of Indian Wells and he also beat Tomas in Chennai at the start of 2013.

The Spaniard has been going along quietly here, beating Benoit Paire comfortably in round two, while Tomas again struggled with Aleksandr Nedovesov, who made Berdych go to four sets.

A cumbersome mover on the clay, Berdych does have the weight of shot to hit through the damp courts here, but he will be moved from side to side by the flat shots of RBA and I'm not sure he'll enjoy today's match.

The Spaniard has come in for some support this morning and at the time of writing is in to 2.962/1 to win, which looks the bet today.

I was stung by misfortune the other day when Jerzy Janowicz somehow won in straight sets over Jarkko Nieminen, but having watched that match I'd be stunned if the Pole gets close to beating Tsonga today.

JJ has little to offer in these conditions and was broken five times from 13 chances by the Finn in three sets, with Nieminen firing more aces as well.

Without the help of 20-odd aces per match Janowicz has nothing on the clay and Tsonga has seemed very much up for the task of defending big ranking points this week in front of his home crowd.

Big Jo in this mood should ease past the hapless Pole and a few bets appeal here, with the most aces looking good for the Frenchman, as well as the minus 5.5 games and the 3-0.

JJ has served poorly this week, with more double faults than aces and having won a couple of matches he won't be too upset to leave and focus on grass, where he has huge points to defend at Wimbledon.

Jo should be by far the more motivated of the two here and surely too smart to fall for JJ's serve and dropshot routine.

Federer may not have things all his own way against Dmitry Tursunov and the handicap options on the Russian could be interesting there, but it's too much for hope for my outright on Bautista-Agut that both the Swiss and Berdych fall today.

I've given up predicting Gilles Simon matches, as he's impossible to call now that he changes his style from a brick wall to attacking at will and the match with him and Milos Raonic could be anything.

Recommended Bets

Back Bautista-Agut to beat Berdych at 2.962/1
Back Tsonga -5.5 games to beat Janowicz at 1.9420/21
Back Tsonga in 'most aces' at 1.8810/11