Analysis for Baghdatis-Ljubicic (Beijing)

Head-to-head record 3:0

Croatian giant Ivan Ljubicic is going to meet Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in the third round of China open. Their head-to-head redord is pretty one-sided but all of these meetings were really tough battles in which luckier Cipriote dominated. We don´t believe he can make it for the fourth time and more experienced Ljubicic is our favourite in this match. Both of these players have been struggling lately and both of them seem to be out of their best form. But we still think that Ljubicic plays in a bit better shape at present as he dominated in both matches he has played so far in Beijing - he defeated both Japanese qualifier Nishikori and Russian Victor Troicki in straight sets. Baghdatis played really bad at US Open where he lost to Max Mirnyi of Belarus (who plays similar style of tennis to Ljubicic, by the way). We expected him to learn from the mistakes but his performance in the opening round of Beijing tournament was terrific. He defeated unknown Chinese qualifier after the tight battle and hasn´t shown any signs of improvement in the second round against Pashanski. Ljubicic disposes of a great serve (and probably the best second serve on ATP circuit) and when he plays in a good shape, it is always very difficult to return his attacking shots from forehand side. Baghdatis is a very talented player without any doubts but we would say he lacks for really big weapon. He usually makes a lot of unforced errors even when he is not playing as agressive tennis as his Croatian opponent. He is still a juvenile player and we don´t think he is able to beat Ljubicic in 4 out of 4 matches. Ljubicic is having the worse season than last year but he is still at least the same player as Baghdatis and his odds should be at 1.8 in our opinion. Odds above 2.0 could be taken here.