The tennis took a bit of a back seat today, as The Open began at Carnoustie and it will be of no surprise to learn that I've had a quiet investment on this. I managed to snag 3.6 -1 on Tiger Woods last week, so I had five points on golf's young master (shit, I've turned into Peter Alliss!) and I'm expecting him to go very close indeed.
It's easy to be tempted by the vast array of bets available on this tournament because of the fact that it is The Open and its tradition and majesty can cloud one's judgement. There are bets on players making/missing the cut, match bets, top player from a certain country/continent, winning score/margin, bets with/without Woods etc etc and the layers will be looking to these bets to make up for potential Tiger losses. I imagine there's a layer somewhere offering odds on the colour of Ian Poulter's trousers if you care to look hard enough. The smart cash was on a kind of tartan check affair in khaki and black of course. On the subject of golfing attire, can anyone tell me why Sergio Garcia has started dressing like an American pensioner on the course lately?
Nevertheless, there were some tennis bets around today and my first was Igor Andreev to beat Filippo Volandri in the second round in Amersfoot. A three point single at around 4/7 seemed sensible enough, although the match itself proved to be anything but sensible. I wouldn't like to say that this match was fixed, but it was very, very questionable at best and stunk to high heaven of some sort of outside involvement.
I watched most of the match on live stream and was watching the odds simultaneously and the betting patterns were extremely unusual. Example - Volandri's odds went out after he broke Andreev's serve in the first set and continued to drift from around evens to about 2-1 after he won the first set!! Andreev's price meanwhile came in to 1-3 even though he had lost the set. The prices were as if Volandri was injured, but no trainer was called and he didn't appear hurt or unwell. The Italian's price went out to 4-1 by the time the second set started, which he went on to lose easily (6-1) and all the time Andreev was unbackable at about 1-8 despite being a set down. I ended up making a small profit on the match, but the powers that be must have a look at this match as the betting patterns were bizarre and the players behaviour in their shotmaking was odd to say the least.
My demeanour improved in the afternoon when an unexpected profit opportunity arrived in the unlikely form of Rafael Nadal. The outright win market went haywire on Betfair when Nadal appeared to be badly injured in just the second game of his Stuttgart second round match with home favourite Philip Kohlschreiber and the King of Clay's price went out briefly to 3-1 for the tournament from 2-7. After a quick look at the state of the injury I decided that 3's was too good to miss and worth taking a chance on, so I had three points on it and layed some off at 2-5 soon after when Nadal appeared to be 100% fit. This leaves me with a nice little bet on Nadal and my other bets are all covered, leaving me with a possible profit and no chance of a loss.
Back over in Holland, Carlos Moya continued his smooth progress toward the final with an afternoon straight sets win over Zabaleta and next plays Werner Eschauer for a place in the semi's. I still have a bet on the questionable Igor Andreev in the bottom half as well, so all is well in Amersfoot (apart from the suspicious betting patterns of course!)
In Los Angeles, both my bets are taking on home opposition tonight. Radek Stepanek takes on Mardy Fish and Tursunov plays Vinny Spadea. Both should progress but I've had a top half saver in the event of Stepanek being turned over.
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