ATP ROTTERDAM - Big Value

[Mr Intensity]

STEPANEK v Schuettler @ 2.50 (WillHill) I've never been a fan of Schuettler and now is a great time to oppose him. Three first round defeats this year is all he has done. Granted, these were against decent opponents (Youzhny, J Johansson and Soderling) but still most people would have expected him to win. Today he is up again Stepanek who I think could be put in the same category as the other players who have beaten Schuettler. Stepanek has also had a pretty poor start to the year, having to retire against Bjorkman, the losing to Gaudio, Henman and Kucera. He also lost both rubbers in his Davis Cup match against Spain (Robredo and Nadal). The worrying thing is that he has lost all 3 of his matches on carpet this year (Rotterdam is carpet too). I think this can be overlooked. Both players will be seriously low on confidence so who is going to get the morale boost? If we look back at H2H, Stepanek is 3-1 with Schuettler's only win coming on clay in there first meeting in 2002. We all know 2003 was Schuettler's "big year" but in this time Stepanek managed to beat him THREE times (on hard, clay and grass courts). Me thinks Stepanek will be the man with the confidence and will be the victor. 2.5 is value.

[Mr Intensity]

Re: ATP ROTTERDAM - Big Value Also like some of: GONZALEZ v Hewitt @ 2.90 My main point here is confidence but first get the standard crap out the way: H2H is 1-1. Gonzalez winning on clay and Hewitt on hard. Right, Hewitt has started the year very well. He won in Sydney (although he opponents in both the semi and the final retired) then got to the 4th round of the Aussie Open before losing to Federer (fair enough). He then won his only rubber in the Davis Cup match, but this is why I am opposing him. It would have been a major disappointment for Australia to lose the match and with all the stuff going on around Philippoussis. I'm not sure if Hewitt will have recovered from that = low confidence. Gonzalez on the other hand started the year pretty poorly. He had a bad time in Australia losing 1st round matches against Sluiter and Roddick. But since then, he won his only tie in the Davis Cup match then won his home tournament in Chile = high confidence. Now admittedly all the wins have been on clay and indoors is a very different proposition but he will be very fired up for this one. He reached the final of the indoor event at Metz last year so can obvious play on the stuff. Gonzalez is always a dangerous player with a massive forehand and I feel he can hurt Hewitt here.