The 2010 tennis season is slowly drawing to an end but it looks like finishing with a real bang. The world’s best players for 2010 have come together for the season ending ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 arena in London. Last year’s event certainly didn’t go to script with online bookmakers cheering Nicolay Davydenko the surprise winner – he’s missing this year and so too is Andy Murray’s demon, Juan Martin Del Potro. Murray missed out on proceeding to the finals with Del Potro winning one game more than Murray in the round robin section.

This year;s event looks to be a lot closer than last year’s. Group A includes Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick and Tomas Berdych while Group B includes Andy Murray, Roger Federer, David Ferrer and Robin Soderling. Murray has wins over all three of his group opponents although Soderling is the current ‘form’ player. He has also taken the world number four ranking from Murray following recent victories.

Betting on this year’s event is quite open with Federer the favourite at 5/2 just ahead of Nadal at 3/1. Djokovic is on the third line at 5/1 just ahead of Murray at 11/2 and Soderling at 9/1. It’s hard to draw a line through the field this year with all eight players having realistic chances of winning. Soderling is the form player and it’s hard to go past him, especially at the odds of 9/1. It’s also hard to ignore players such as Federer and Nadal.

Much will depend on the early games and one of the best will probably be the opener with Murray taking on Soderling. This game could well set the tone for the rest of the tournament. Bookmakers have Murray an 8/11 favourite with Soderling at 6/5. Murray has been inconsistent all year so we’ll tip Soderling to defeat the home favourite. I’m not sure he can go all the way and may well meet Nadal in the semi-finals. Federer started the year well, has played well all year, and will most likely finish it the way he started – we’ll tip Federer – but not with any confidence.