Another from bettingzone...
BACK NADAL, LAY MURRAYIt's been an unusual couple of weeks leading into Wimbledon as far as the men are concerned.
Usually it's a good time for at least one of the title contenders to lay down a marker with victory at one of the warm-up tournaments.
Roger Federer, for example, usually prepares with a customary triumph at Halle in Germany, while in recent times Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick have all won at Queen's Club before going on to either challenge or win at the All England Club.
Yet this year none of the big guns has impressed and when looking at the ante-post markets it's more a case of thinking who has done less badly than who has done well.
We'll start with Federer. He'd won 29 matches in a row at Halle until he was stunned last weekend by Lleyton Hewitt.
The shock was seismic not just due to Federer's awesome grasscourt record - as well as ending his Halle run, the defeat was only his second in 78 matches on the lawns - but also that he had beaten Hewitt in their previous 15 meetings.
It probably won't hit Federer too hard, after all it's well known he's now focusing heavily on the majors these days, but it shows there is a potential weakness there ahead of his bid for a seventh Wimbledon crown - one which would draw him level with Pete Sampras at SW19.
Perhaps Novak Djokovic or Andy Roddick could prosper as a result of any Federer dip for they are both potential semi-final foes for the Swiss.
Yet Djokovic has been all over the place of late, meddling with his serve has taken him backwards not forwards, and in any case grass is probably the Serb's weakest surface.
As for Roddick, who famously pushed Federer all the way in last year's final, he was also on the wrong end of a big shock when he lost to Dudi Sela at Queen's.
His famed serve was particularly disappointing in that match and whereas the American usually arrives at Wimbledon with plenty of grasscourt matches under his belt, that won't be the case this season.
In the bottom half, Andy Murray's form has to be a worry for potential backers and to us he looks one to lay rather than back right now.
Since reaching the Australian Open final in January, Murray has definitely struggled. He's yet to win a tournament in 2010 and hasn't beaten a single top-20 player since his defeat to Federer in Melbourne, while every loss he's suffered has been against a lower-ranked foe.
The good news for British fans is that Murray's draw has given him a chance to play himself into some kind of form early on, while the fact he seems a natural mover on grass is also on his side.
Yet the prices look too short for us to consider backing the Briton, who looks a long way from the form he was in when he made the last four here 12 months ago.
Finally of the main contenders we come to Rafael Nadal, who returns to the All England Club for the first time since his epic success here in 2008.
Nadal won that match 9-7 in the fifth against Federer during the most glittering of golden spells which also saw him win the French Open and, later, the Australian Open title.
Injury ruined his 2009 campaign thereafter but now he's getting close to the sort of form which saw him win here.
The claycourt season was dominated by the Spaniard - he won every match and lost just two sets - and now the task turns to backing that up by winning Wimbledon, just as he did in 2008.
Crucially during the clay period it was concluded Nadal is hitting a deeper ball with less top spin and that will undoubtedly help him here where the ball doesn't kick up like it does on the clay.
Feliciano Lopez threw a spanner in the works at Queen's with a shock quarter-final win, but of all the surprise losses suffered over the past fortnight, this is the one which concerns us the least.
After his win in Paris, Nadal had openly admitted he wanted to get back to Mallorca for a bit of R&R and after the rigours of the clay campaign, a week off was really what he needed.
The biggest threat to Nadal en route to the final would appear to be Robin Soderling, the man who he beat in the French Open title decider. They could meet again in the last eight here.
While Soderling will have his backers to win the fourth quarter at 11/2 (
Betfred), we'll take Nadal to come through and progress to the final - after all no-one but Federer has beaten Nadal at Wimbledon since 2005.
Our other bet will be to back up our negative words about Murray by laying him on the spreads.
Queen's winner Sam Querrey is probably the biggest danger in Murray's section of the draw - one which would appear to be pretty kind.
However, we've already mentioned how Murray has suffered some pretty poor losses over the course of the season so far and it's far from certain he'll be able to beat the likes of Querrey and Fernando Verdasco.
A look at the people to have beaten him since that run in Australia certainly give us hope - Janko Tipsarevic, Robin Soderling, Mardy Fish (twice), Philipp Kohlschreiber, David Ferrer (twice) and Tomas Berdych.
To make a profit on the outright index (60pts win; 40 RU; 20 SF; 10 QF; 5 L16) Murray will have to equal last year's semi-final run. Anything less yields us a profit which seems fair to us.
