A second day of rain hampered my activities in Switzerland on Tuesday and I was left waiting on the Ramirez Hidalgo bet, which didn't make it on court and in my frustration I felt the need to have a quiet multiple on the day's play.
I considered Davydenko, Soderling, Mahut and Youzhny to be pretty much nailed on and it looked good when Soderling came through in straight sets in Sweden and Davydenko took the first set against Monfils in Switzerland. I usually avoid betting on a match involving Gael Monfils, due to his extremely erratic, streaky play and sure enough the Frenchman roared back, took the second set and served for the match at 5-3 in the third only to be denied by a Russian comeback and the Swiss drizzle. The pair were forced off at 5-5 and my five point multiple lives to fight another day.
Also coming back tomorrow will be Igor Andreev, whose match with Albert Montanes was incomplete for the second day running. Andreev will be serving for the match at 5-4 in the third when they return and Mathieu managed to dodge the rain and prevail in straight sets, so I'm still 100% in Gstaad; so far so good.
No such problems with the weather over at the Swedish Open in Bastad and Fernando Verdasco breezed through his first round encounter to join Nicolas Almagro in the last sixteen. I've been watching Betfair's live stream in Bastad and it proved a great day for the home nation, as Bjorkman, Soderling and Johansson all won today. Stan James have Carlos Moya as the new favourite at 3-1 now, followed by my man Almagro at 7-2 and today's impressive winner David Ferrer next at 4's. Still with Stan James, they have a market on a lifetime Wimbledon winner and there's not much value in it as far as I can see. They go 1/7 Nadal to win it in his lifetime and bizarrely 6/4 against Donald Young to acheive the feat! Clearly Stan James rate the young American incredibly highly, as they have him ahead of Djokovic in the market at 5-2. SJ clearly know something that I don't.
Over in Newport on the grass I wasn't shocked to see number one seed Mardy Fish get turned over by Aisam-Ul-Haq-Qureshi in the first round. I saw the qualifier from Pakistan take care of Gasquet on the grass in Nottingham and give Safin a match at Wimbledon and if you add that to the alleged 'top seed curse' in Newport it's not too surprising really. Elsewhere, talking about predictable defeats, Brit Alex Bogdanovic succumbed to a poor loss against Thai number two Danai Udomchoke, collapsing 6-0 in the decider.
Still in Newport, bookies favourite Nicolas Kiefer was beaten in a strenuous first rounder against Chilean Paul Capdeville, eventually suffering a three set defeat (7-5 in the third set) and I feel vindicated about my refusal to back the German at such a short price. All in all it's been a good day at Newport (so far!) and as I write Nicolas Mahut is down to 2-1 with Betfair without hitting a shot, however he does have a Chilean first round opponent to contend with, so I shouldn't speak too soon.
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