Chela ousted Rodick after great performance in second round. He played very well, American player had problems with serve his main weapon and that was enough for victory. Rodick only won four games in this match.
On the other hand Gonzalez didn’t show his best Situs Qiu Qiu against Massu. He defeated his fellow Massu 2-1. It was very tough match for Fernando. He picked knee injury in that match and he couldn’t show his best.
After these performances bookies give a little advantage to Chela. He is currently on 23 ATP ranking position and he have won four ATP titles. Gonzalez is sitting on 6th ATP position. He is in bad form lately without some better result in last few months. Also in head to head matches in ATP tour Chela has 3-2 advantage but they haven’t played on the clay till now.
I believe that Chela is currently has quality to make break through in next Rome round. Gonzalez has injury worries and he couldn’t play on high level to long.
I will take Chela to win
Djokovic will face Soderling in Rome after he won his third title this year. He defeated Gasquet in Estoril final last week. Currently he is fifth on ATPrankings and he is five seeded in Rome. This season he make ATP break through and he improved almost all aspects of his playing. The most important thing for his quality is service improvement. Also he plays on the net much better then last season.
Only thing he could worry about is tiredness. He played lot of matches in last two weeks and we could see it against Gasquet in second set. On the other hand he has day or to recover and I expect that he will be in form against Soderling.
Soderling haven’t played very well this year. He reached semies in Doha, Dubai and Marseille and he is currently 27 ATP rankings. Last good result he recorded in Monte Carlo where he beat Max Mirny 2-0 but he lost against Berdych in quarterfinals. In my opinion he hasn’t quality to overpower Djokovic. Maybe he is more experienced player but Djokovic showed that he has enough mental strength for big results and he will find way to hammer Soderling in their first match ever.
Odds are pretty high for this kind of match and I will go with Djokovic with high stake.
