Argentina currently leads the tie 2-1 moving into the reverse single today. Nalbandian and Ljubicic face off in the first matchup and both have contrasting styles, Nalbandian arguably the best return of serve in the world against Ljubicic who arguably possess the best serve in the world. These kind of matchups will lend it itself to some interesting contests and the H2h of 2-2 basically reflects that neither has the other opponents measure.
On paper it is easy to take Ljubicic to win today, everything seems to be in his favour - home crowd, surface that aids his huge serve and the must win situation he finds himself in. Add to that it was only last week in Miami he destroyed Nalbandian in the semi final winning 6-1 6-2. It is interesting to see the books have effectively the swapped the odds for this matchup, with Ljubicic now being the heavy favourite and Nalbandian at + odds. However Ljubicic has played a lot of matches recently, forget the fact that he made the final in Miami last week, he had a draining 5 set battle against Calleri in the first rubber, having been at one stage 2 points away from defeat and coming back from 2 sets to love down. Then he backed up for the doubles, where the first signs of his tiredness showed as his young partner Cilic was consistently outserving Ljubicic in terms of speed. Basically i see this as being a situational play similar to Shanghai Masters last year where Nalbandian belted Ljubicic 6-2 6-2 in the RR stage. Ljubicic was drained that day after having made a huge effort to qualify for the top 8 in the prior month playing back to back indoor tournaments throughout October last year. Add to that Nalbandian owns just as impressive davis cup singles record, having lost only 1 singles rubber in his career 4 years ago to Safin in Russia, in fact that being his first ever tie representing Argentina as well.
Verdict: Nalbandian to win: +138 (Pinnacle)
Be lucky
