The end of the first week’s play in New York and the quality of the matches has been increasing almost daily as we reach the men’s third round and ladies fourth round encounters.
Day 7 started with what looked like a tough assignment for Serena Williams on Ashe against Wimbledon finalist, Marion Bartoli.
Serena had not impressed in her early matches, but was rarely troubled by the French woman with the bizarre service action in a routine straight sets victory, which represented an ominous improvement in form from Williams.
Concurrently on Armstrong, David Nalbandian and David Ferrer were slugging it out and after being down by a set and a break, Nalbandian surged back to take a two sets to one lead and Ferrer’s shirt bore the brunt of the Spaniard’s discontent, as he tore at it manically in frustration.
Ferrer looked down and out at a break down in the fourth, but an epic eighth game saw Nalbandian broken after eight deuces and the Valencian stayed strong to take the set to a breaker in which he outlasted Chubby Dave to take us to a fifth.
Whilst a fifth set was a blessing from a betting viewpoint, it meant that I had to suffer the same appallingly banal US commentator that had aggravated me so during the Davydenko v Kiefer encounter the other day. Whoever he is, he sounds like Kent Brockman from The Simpsons and I was 50/50 on whether to mute the TV for the duration of the match.
Chubby Dave was the first to have a match point at 4-5 on Valencian Dave’s serve, but he missed a very makeable backhand and the chance had gone. That was to prove costly, as Nalbandian lost his serve in the next game and Ferrer served it out to love for a fine victory that will probably grate with the portly one for some time to come.
Back on Ashe and I’d had a little investment in Venus Williams as a saver bet for the title and also for this match with Ana Ivanovic and this match-up turned out to be very one-sided, as Venus eased her way to a straight sets victory, encountering little resistance from the Serbian.
A more competitive match on Armstrong followed – a five set tussle between Robby Ginepri and Stanislas Wawrinka and this one turned into a battle of who could hold their serve and their nerve.
Stan had a warning for slapping a ball into the crowd and was lucky to escape a penalty for smashing his racquet in the fourth set after missing a sitter of a forehand, while at the other end Ginepri was as impassive as ever.
Wawrinka found himself with three match points at 5-3 in the decider, but Ginepri fended them all off before a Ginepri forehand hit the tape and sailed over the baseline for a Swiss victory.
Elsewhere, Henin had disdainfully dismissed Safina in straight sets and Moya outlasted Kohlschreiber in a five set thriller, which just left Novak Djokovic v Juan Martin Del Potro as the night’s entertainment.
After his marathon encounter with Stepanek, Djokovic must have been quietly confident of a quick finish tonight and he got one, with a trouble free straight sets win over the lanky Argentine. The only point of interest in this one was trying to work out whether there is any pattern to Novak’s ball bouncing on serve. The one time that Del Potro had 0-40 and three break points in the match, Djoko bounced the ball an incredible 24 times before serving. I’d certainly have been having a word with the umpire if I were Del Potro.
So, the end of an exhausting first week and today has brought me back to level profit, after some bad results earlier on. My outright bets are still in the hunt and week two promises some great tennis and excellent profit opportunities.
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