After winning the hearts of tennis fans five years back, Marat Safin's tennis career has just been on the decline to be honest. His one time poweerful shots and deadly forehands have now turned into inconsistent and unforced errors. At the moment, his world ranking is still at a respectable number 20 but his opponent today Tsonga is at 8th. Tsonga's first round exit in round was somewhat of a surprise as he had went all the way to the semis in the previous tournament. But all in all, the frenchman's overall record of 25-6 this year is pretty good.

Safin have actually been involved in fourteen tournaments throught the whole of 2009, because of the fact that his record of 6-8 suggest that he has had many first round exits to date. Amazingly or not, all 6 but 2 safin's losses have all been tight three set contests which goes to show thathe does not go out without a fight and similarly for Tsonga, his record against the top 20 players have not been too easy going. His wins against the better player have all been to the rubber set and I think it will be a similar case today.

Tsonga to win 2-1 @ 4-1 with bet365