After the withdrawal of Rafael Nadal from the Rogers Masters 2014, Novak Djokovic has become an overwhelming favourites with the bookmakers, and it’s no surprise why.
Djokovic has been the man in form, having won the Wimbledon earlier this year and he was also the finalist at the French Open where he went down to Nadal. Not too many others possess the kind of mental tenacity that the world number one does and that was on display time and again in that epic final at Wimbledon against the seven-time champion Roger Federer.
What’s a tad surprising however, is that Djokovic enters the competition at 6/5 (Stan James) to win the Rogers Masters 2014. Given he needs to win five matches in a row and to top that, he has a pretty tough draw to boot, these are rather short odds that are being offered for Djokovic’s win.
And usually when such odds are offered for one player to clinch the title, the others are rather long shots to do that – and here’s where you can take advantage.
Roger Federer, at the time of writing, starts out as the second seed in the competition and is 5/1 (BetFred) to win the title. Similarly Milos Raonic, who is coming off a competition win at the ATP Washington last week, and who is seeded sixth in the tournament, is at 14/1 (BetVictor) to emerge a champion in this tournament.
The reason why I take these two players in particular is two-fold. One, they are genuine contenders, at least to make it to the final but more importantly they do not belong to the same half of the draw as Djokovic. So neither can lose to Djokovic before the final.
The other two high seeded players in their half of the draw are Tomas Berdych and David Ferrer, two players not in the best of form on this surface.
A £100 bet on Federer to win the title and a £50 on Raonic will earn you £450 & £650 respectively if they did win the tournament. Assuming one of them did make the final and as did Djokovic – say it is a Federer v Raonic final. Am I safe in assuming that the shortest Djokovic will start off the final is at around 1/2 against Federer? Or even 2/5? (what also follows from this is that if Djokovic gets knocked off early, any other opponent playing Raonic will not start at 2/5 – will be more on the lines of 8/11 or even evens).
At 2/5, and with £650 win a possibility if Raonic beats Djokovic, you need to put £400 on a Djokovic win – this will give you £160 at 2/5 (note, for someone who might start at 8/11, this will return around £300) and the original loss will be £150 (for the money put on Federer & Raonic!), which means you will still end up in profit. Of course, if either Raonic or Federer win, your profit will be that much more. So will it be if Djokovic does not make the final but someone else does.