Rogers Cup 2014 Betting: Chardy to prove a tough opponent for Tsonga

Will Chardy be celebrating another Toronto win over Tsonga?

After a couple of winners yesterday in Toronto, tennis expert Sean Calvert is back with his best bets for Wednesday in the 2014 Rogers Cup...

It was a pleasing day on Tuesday in Toronto, as both of my recommended bets were fairly comfortable winners in the end on another soggy day in Canada.

The only other dampener on the day was Bernard Tomic's painful loss to Ivo Karlovic after taking the opening set.

Tomic went on to lose two tie breaks and the match, but Jack Sock did it easily against Jurgen Melzer and Gilles Simon raced through the deciding set against a tired Dominic Thiem 6-0.

Andy Murray makes his tournament debut today and the weather looks set fair for a full day's play in which there are plenty of big names on show at the Rexall Centre.

Murray starts the day at an unfavourable time and against a tricky opponent in Nick Kyrgios and an 11am local time (4pm UK) call time won't please the notoriously slow to start Murray one bit.

Kyrgios has been over rated since beating Rafa Nadal and he has a lot to learn still, but his serve should give him a decent chance of staying close today.

Circumstances are certainly in Nick's favour, with Murray not having played since the humiliating manner of his defeat at Wimbledon to Grigor Dimitrov, plus the early start.

Normally, 1.374/11 would be a decent price on Murray against this level of opposition but there are plenty of doubts about the Brit and I would expect Kyrgios to take this into a decider and the three sets at 2.89/5 looks a decent option.

Taking place at the same time is another shaky-looking favourite in Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who was beaten by today's opponent Jeremy Chardy here in Toronto the last time the Rogers Cup was held here in 2012.

Tsonga has shown very little over the last year to suggest that he should be a short-priced favourite for this, with Chardy playing at around Tsonga's general level this campaign.

Jo has made just one semi final all year and only three quarter finals in total from his 13 tournaments in 2014 and he was hardly impressive against Edouard Roger-Vasselin in round one.

ERV's terrible record against Tsonga led to him fading away in the second set of that one, but Chardy won't be so accommodating and the +3.5 games on him looks good here at around 2.01/1.

Tsonga is behind Milos Raonic and Lukas Rosol and one spot ahead of Kevin Anderson in return games won in 2014 at 56th spot and he'll find it tough to break Chardy often today.

The slowish courts here in Toronto won't aid his cause either and Jo is one of those players whose Rogers Cup record of 7-3 is misleading because those wins came at the much quicker Montreal and he'd never won a match in Toronto before this week.

He also has never beaten Chardy on a hard court by four games, so I like Chardy's handicap chances here.

I'm also tempted to back Tim Smyczek at 3.185/40 to beat Feliciano Lopez, with the American in good form and at his best time of the year on North American hard courts.

Lopez is too short after beating my fancy Roberto Bautista Agut in round one and that could be a minor upset in the making.

Tomas Berdych may not have things all his own way against the mercurial Yen Hsun Lu either and Tomas will need to be on top form to cover a minus 5.5 game handicap in that one.

He's never managed it before against Lu and in his first match here it will be tough for him to do so again.

Berdych is another with a questionable record in Canada, with a best of three quarter finals in nine attempts and Lu will be attuned to conditions after a typically up and down win over Marcel Granollers yesterday.

The Czech is coming off a poor loss to Vasek Pospisil in round two of Washington and at around 1.75/7 I'm happy to side with Lu to cover here, with Tomas likely to be happy just to progress after a poor summer by his standards.

Recommended Bets
Back Chardy +3.5 games to beat Tsonga at 2.01/1
Back Lu +5.5 games to beat Berdych at 1.75/7