Austria, Croatia & Indy - Desperation strikes

My betting activities were curtailed again today by a power cut and my singular ability to pick a winner. You wouldn't have thought it was that hard to pick a winner at tennis, being as there are but two competitors, the odds are that picking the victor would be possible at least some of the time? Usually, it comes as naturally to me as choking comes naturally to Sergio Garcia, but the last couple of days have seen my previously healthy betting pot take a bit of a hit.

Djokovic losing in Croatia set me on the road to the poor house and it could have been much worse today, save for another bizarre match involving this week's potential saviour, Potito Starace.

The tall Italian took on countryman Andreas Seppi today in the quarters at Kitzbuhel and he started in a fashion that your average club player would be appalled with. Starace was broken four times in the first set, winning a diabolical 20 percent of points behind his first serve and managing just 13 points in total. He lost that one 6-1.

Things scarcely got any better in the second, as Seppi served for the match at 5-4 and had match points that for the second consecutive match, Starace held off and went on to take the set 7-5.

It was an amazing turnaround, but Seppi was far from done, coming back from a break down to force a final set tie break shoot out, in which both players had match points before my new favourite Potito Starace, the pride of Benevento, came through on his third match point to take the honours and my wedge into the semi finals.

The Italian has a one-all record against each of the three other semi finalists, so on paper he does stand a fighting chance of victory, but first he must face last year's title winner, Agustin Calleri, who has been in poor form recently, but will go off at around 8-13 favourite against my hope. I haven't been able to watch any of Starace's matches thus far, but the stats are none too encouraging and he will have to play much better tomorrow to have a chance.

Of course, the Starace success was marred by my stubborn belief that Tommy Robredo would take out Juan Monaco in the other morning quarter final. How wrong I was on that one! Monaco came through at a canter in the decider by 6-2. I was a good six points down on that bet and thank god that at that point the lights quite literally went out on me.