France captain Guy Forget was fooling no one when he described his team as underdogs ahead of the 2010 Davis Cup final. Serbia might have home advantage and the outstanding player in their ranks, but davis cup tennis betting pundits note how the French route to the final has been so smooth an impressive that Forget’s statement represents little more than an attempt to increase the pressure on the hosts.

Forget’s outfit have lost only one rubber in this year’s world group, beating Germany 4-1 and whitewashing Spain and Argentina 5-0. That quarter final humbling of Spain was particularly noteworthy, coming as it did against reigning champions who were full of top-30 ranked players.

Serbia have been tested more on their way to the final, beating United States and Czech Republic 3-2 in the first round and semi finals respectively, although Croatia were comfortably dispatched 4-1 in the last eight.

The home team certainly have the form players and the davis cup odds reflect this. Novak Djokovic reached the last four of the ATP World Finals last week, a tournament that Nenad Zimonjic confirmed himself to be the best doubles player in the world. Surprisingly Zimonjic has lost all three of his world group doubles rubbers, twice alongside Janko Tipsarevic and once with Djokovic.

This suggests Serbia might rely too heavily on Djokovic, the world number three winning all five of his Davis Cup singles this year. In contrast France are missing their top singles player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (who has a 5-2 career record against Djokovic), although it should be noted he has not featured in the last two rounds either.

Indeed, Tsonga’s withdrawal due to injury in France’s opening match is the only rubber they have lost this year, proving their doubles partnership of Julien Benneteau and Michael Llodra is central to their success. Their settled partnership will take some beating in the middle rubber of the tie{jcomments on}