ABN AMRO World Tennis Betting: Gulbis and Simon two lively outsiders in Rotterdam

Gulbis looks a big price in Rotterdam this week

After picking out Andreas Seppi in Zagreb last week tennis expert Sean Calvert casts his eye over the draw in Rotterdam and comes up with a couple of big-priced outsiders...

Week six of the ATP World Tour sees the Golden Swing continue in South America on clay, while there's indoor hard court tennis in the USA and Netherlands.

At the time of writing last week's outright tip of Andreas Seppi was preparing to play the final in Zagreb and my 11.010/1 shot was a 1.68/13 favourite for his decider against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Plenty of profit opportunities in that one, then, and the big tournament of week six is the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, which is screened live in the UK on Sky Sports.

Conditions used to be fast indoors here in Rotterdam, but former Wimbledon champ Richard Krajicek, who's the tournament director these days, made a concerted effort to slow it down a couple of years ago.

It's been tweaked a bit and is currently a Proflex surface, which I recall last year being rather slow and certainly not as quick as the old days at the Ahoy Stadium.

Australian Open runner-up Andy Murray is our top seed in Rotterdam this week and the Scot is looking for his second title here, having won it back in 2009.

Murray has rarely played here since and this year he's been drawn alongside defending champion Tomas Berdych, Gilles Simon, Gael Monfils, and Roberto Bautista-Agut in his half.

Also in that section of the draw are Philipp Kohlschreiber, who Murray may face in his first match in Rotterdam, and also the likes of Jerzy Janowicz, Seppi, Julien Benneteau and Jeremy Chardy.

The bottom half of the draw looks tougher, with Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic, Grigor Dimitrov, Ernests Gulbis, and Gilles Muller just some of the big players in that section.

I like the 34.033/1 on Gulbis in that half of the draw, with the Latvian a semi finalist here last year after an equally disappointing Australian Open as this year's was and Raonic is the obvious obstacle this time around.

The Canadian is making his Rotterdam debut this year and although the head-to-head looks good for Raonic over Gulbis their last meeting was very tight and a clash between these two would probably be settled on who has the better serving day.

Raonic looks short enough at 7.06/1 and at that sort of price I'd prefer to side with Wawrinka, who has been in fine form so far this year and who does hold a clear advantage over the Canadian on past meetings.

The Swiss hasn't played here in 10 years though and he's only ever made one final on indoor hard, which was back in 2007 in Vienna.

Dimitrov was a semi finalist here back in 2013, but he's hard to win with for a 9.08/1 shot and Gulbis beat the Bulgarian in straight sets here in Rotterdam a year ago, which makes his price seem typically short.

Gulbis needs matches after an injury affected end to last season and early exit in Melbourne and Auckland this, but he should be fit and ready for another crack at Raonic with the chance to go one better than last year.

In Murray's half the Scot is a little short for me at 3.55/2 and Kohlschreiber or Vasek Pospisil isn't the easiest first round match in the world.

Kohlschreiber should have beaten Murray at the French Open last year and did beat him in their only other career meeting, so it could pay to have a look at Simon in that half of the draw at 46.045/1.

Gillou says he's feeling fit at the moment and his draw won't pair him with any huge hitters, such as Janowicz, until the latter stages if they both got there.

Janowicz bludgeoned his way past Simon in much quicker conditions in Montpellier last week, but there'd be nobody of that sort of power to face until the semi finals in Rotterdam.

The slower conditions should suit the Frenchman, who is likely to face Berdych in the last four should anything go amiss with Murray and Simon has won three of his last four against the defending champion.

For his part, Berdych has a tricky opener against Janowicz, who the Czech beat in three sets in the quarter finals here last year, and that could easily go wrong for Berdych.

Monfils is struggling at the moment, with his usual mix of physical ailments (real or imagined) and some unspecified off-court issues, and I would prefer Bautista-Agut, who made the Moscow final on slow indoor hard last autumn.

I'm not sure he has it in him to win this though and I'm happy to side with two big priced runners this week in Gulbis and Simon.

Recommended Bets (back-to-lay)
Back Gulbis at 34.033/1
Back Simon at 46.045/1