A very pleasing week comes to an end, with profits galore at all three ATP tournaments and a bank balance that is returning to it's heady pre-US Open heights, just as the season winds down.
In Basel, Roger Federer retained his Swiss Open title at the tournament where he was a ball boy in his youth. A bloodless straight sets victory over Jarkko Nieminen in the final represented Fed's eighth consecutive victory over the Finn (16 sets in a row) and a return on my 10 point wager at 1.5 with Boylesports.
Over in St Petersburg it was an eventful week to say the least. Andy Murray lifted the sizable trophy after coming from matchpoint down against Youzhny in the semi's to record a finals day win over Fernando Verdasco in straight sets.
The final was perfect for me, having advised and backed both players pre-tournament and a very nice profit of 15 points was the outcome.
The St Petersburg event was a controversial one however, with some extremely questionable matches taking place - notably Tursunov v Pashanski, where Tursunov was being backed to the hilt at 1.2 despite being a set and a break down! The result? Why, a Tursunov comeback victory of course...'They' knew.
Barely a week goes by these days without Nikolay Davydenko making headlines, this time it was for receiving a code violation and a fine for 'not giving best effort' in his match against Marin Cilic. Having written about this elsewhere http://tennisgurunews.blogspot.com/2007/10/davydenko-in-spotlight-again.html, I'll move on swiftly to the Lyon tournament.
My man in Lyon, Marc Gicquel, made it to the final at the nice price of 30 and with each seeded player falling early, the final against Seb Grosjean allowed an easy lay opportunity, which I took for an all-profit outcome. My initial investment of 1.5 points showed a profit of 10 points and the week in total showed a green of 30 points.
On to this week and the final Masters Series event of the year in Paris sees a rather lopsided draw and an opportunity for the much maligned (and rightly so) Davydenko to answer his many critics on the tennis court.
The Russian defending champ, has by far the easiest draw and I snapped up the 51 on offer from Sporting Odds on Saturday. The price is now down as low as 13 with some high street layers and I wouldn't touch that, but 50 is about right for a 1.5 point wager on a player whose mental state can only be estimated, along with his ethics.
I'm going with the theory that Davydenko will look to produce a good show as defending champ and the draw couldn't be kinder, given the fact that Federer has Karlovic, Nalbandian, Berdych, Murray, Djokovic, Gasquet and Blake in his section and will be tired after his two long weeks. Davy by comparison has only the likes of Ljubicic, Canas and Robredo in his quarter and only a clearly jaded Nadal of any note in his half, given the poor recent form of Haas and Gonzalez, so if (and it's a big if) the Russian can be bothered this week, he has an outstanding chance.
Monday, 29 October 2007
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Basel, St Petersburg & Lyon advice
The end of the tennis season always brings up a few unlikely results, but I managed to escape with a very healthy profit from Zurich and Madrid last week, largely thanks to Justine Henin and there are a few opportunities this week in which to reinvest those winnings.
The first wager that stands out for value seekers on Betfair is Fernando Verdasco outright in St Petersburg.
The top of the draw looks very weak in comparison to the bottom half, with only a potentially injured and as yet unnappeared Nikolay Davydenko to worry about and 14 looks a generous lay, particularly considering the high street layers are only offering 9.
Verdasco almost took out Djokovic last week in Madrid and has that huge lefty forehand in prime condition just now, so it's worth chancing that Davydenko won't make it to the semi's and taking that 14 on offer about the Spaniard.
The tougher bottom half appears to hold great opportunities for two players coming back from injury, in Murray and Ancic and I've had my share of the Scot at 5 and the Croat at 7. These two should contest the semi in the form they are in and both won in straight sets yesterday.
Over in Basel, I've had an investment in Federer at 1.5, with a small back up on Paul-Henri Mathieu at 34 in the easier bottom half of the draw. It seems unlikely that Federer will lose twice in a fortnight and in his home town, where he is defending champ, so a back to lay seemed like a sensible bet.
In Lyon, local specialist Marc Gicquel has an outstanding chance in the only tournament where he play well and his first round straight sets win over Robredo was no surprise. The bottom half looks weak and at 30 a wager on Gicquel looks the call.
Of the first round matches, I would pay good money to watch Santoro play Roddick and don't be surprised if The Magician has a trick or two still left up his sleeve for A-Rod.
The first wager that stands out for value seekers on Betfair is Fernando Verdasco outright in St Petersburg.
The top of the draw looks very weak in comparison to the bottom half, with only a potentially injured and as yet unnappeared Nikolay Davydenko to worry about and 14 looks a generous lay, particularly considering the high street layers are only offering 9.
Verdasco almost took out Djokovic last week in Madrid and has that huge lefty forehand in prime condition just now, so it's worth chancing that Davydenko won't make it to the semi's and taking that 14 on offer about the Spaniard.
The tougher bottom half appears to hold great opportunities for two players coming back from injury, in Murray and Ancic and I've had my share of the Scot at 5 and the Croat at 7. These two should contest the semi in the form they are in and both won in straight sets yesterday.
Over in Basel, I've had an investment in Federer at 1.5, with a small back up on Paul-Henri Mathieu at 34 in the easier bottom half of the draw. It seems unlikely that Federer will lose twice in a fortnight and in his home town, where he is defending champ, so a back to lay seemed like a sensible bet.
In Lyon, local specialist Marc Gicquel has an outstanding chance in the only tournament where he play well and his first round straight sets win over Robredo was no surprise. The bottom half looks weak and at 30 a wager on Gicquel looks the call.
Of the first round matches, I would pay good money to watch Santoro play Roddick and don't be surprised if The Magician has a trick or two still left up his sleeve for A-Rod.
Thursday, 18 October 2007
ATP Masters Madrid - The story so far
The temperature in the race for the final available berths for the end of season jolly in Shanghai was raised a couple of notches in Madrid this week and that combined with competing at altitude in Europe's highest capital led to a flurry of early casualties.
With half of the places already allocated and another two appearing reserved for Roddick and Ferrer, the remaining positions could conceivably be taken by anyone currently in the top twenty, bar the injured Lleyton Hewitt, so close are the players in the rankings.
The top 16 seeded competitors all received byes into the second round and many will now wish they hadn't, as 10 of them went out in the second round and another, Nikolay Davydenko, retired through injury.
All of which leaves the week's most impressive performer thus far, Andy Murray, in with an outside chance of reaching Shanghai and a great chance of revenge over Rafael Nadal tonight in what promises to be a classic encounter.
With so many of his rivals faltering, if Murray does overcome Nadal et al it is conceivable that he would move into the top 10 with two tournaments left in which to accrue ranking points. The manner of his two victories this week suggests that after a difficult rehabilitation from a wrist injury, he is now at peak fitness and crucially the forehand is back in business, as Stepanek and Chela will testify.
Sky's commentator-less interactive coverage combined with a distinct lack of spectators on Court Alcala this week has meant that every exchange between players and officials could be heard in full and there have been a few feisty incidents of note this week.
First to lose the plot was (not for the first time) Jurgen Melzer in his first round match with Ginepri. After cruising the first set against a slow starting Ginepri, Melzer was on the receiving end of some questionable calls and went into meltdown in the second set breaker after a poor overrule from the umpire gave Ginepri an unassailable advantage.
Melzer's racquet bore the brunt and bizarrely he tried to fix it whilst Ginepri was waiting to serve and the Austrian received a code violation for time wasting, at which point I genuinely believed that Melzer was about to burst into tears. Instead, he lost the set and went for a lengthy comfort break before losing the match in a third set which saw almost constant muttering and complaining from one of a band of temperamental Austrian players. Compatriot, Stafan Koubek was thrown out of a tournament recently for similar antics.
American, Mardy Fish, was next to have Sky reaching for the mute button, as he threatened to "kick his (Paul-Henri Mathieu's) fu***ng ass" in an unusual altercation during the second set of their first round encounter.
After winning the first set, the Frenchman was a couple of breaks down in the second set when he took what Fish perceived to be a tactical injury timeout and the players came together, alongside the umpire at the net after Mathieu had disputed a line call.
Fish's expletive ridden tirade was mainly to the umpire, who tried unsuccessfully to defend Mathieu's sportmanship and the Frenchman wisely retreated to the baseline to lose the set, but take the match in the decider.
On the betting front, successful wagers on Murray (twice), Ancic, Nalbandian and Del Potro led to a handy profit, which was somewhat dented by Gasquet's loss to Mathieu yesterday.
I'm going to have an interest in Murray, Ancic and possibly Nalbandian today and my main investments this week, rather unoriginally on Federer and Henin, play their respective matches today also.
With half of the places already allocated and another two appearing reserved for Roddick and Ferrer, the remaining positions could conceivably be taken by anyone currently in the top twenty, bar the injured Lleyton Hewitt, so close are the players in the rankings.
The top 16 seeded competitors all received byes into the second round and many will now wish they hadn't, as 10 of them went out in the second round and another, Nikolay Davydenko, retired through injury.
All of which leaves the week's most impressive performer thus far, Andy Murray, in with an outside chance of reaching Shanghai and a great chance of revenge over Rafael Nadal tonight in what promises to be a classic encounter.
With so many of his rivals faltering, if Murray does overcome Nadal et al it is conceivable that he would move into the top 10 with two tournaments left in which to accrue ranking points. The manner of his two victories this week suggests that after a difficult rehabilitation from a wrist injury, he is now at peak fitness and crucially the forehand is back in business, as Stepanek and Chela will testify.
Sky's commentator-less interactive coverage combined with a distinct lack of spectators on Court Alcala this week has meant that every exchange between players and officials could be heard in full and there have been a few feisty incidents of note this week.
First to lose the plot was (not for the first time) Jurgen Melzer in his first round match with Ginepri. After cruising the first set against a slow starting Ginepri, Melzer was on the receiving end of some questionable calls and went into meltdown in the second set breaker after a poor overrule from the umpire gave Ginepri an unassailable advantage.
Melzer's racquet bore the brunt and bizarrely he tried to fix it whilst Ginepri was waiting to serve and the Austrian received a code violation for time wasting, at which point I genuinely believed that Melzer was about to burst into tears. Instead, he lost the set and went for a lengthy comfort break before losing the match in a third set which saw almost constant muttering and complaining from one of a band of temperamental Austrian players. Compatriot, Stafan Koubek was thrown out of a tournament recently for similar antics.
American, Mardy Fish, was next to have Sky reaching for the mute button, as he threatened to "kick his (Paul-Henri Mathieu's) fu***ng ass" in an unusual altercation during the second set of their first round encounter.
After winning the first set, the Frenchman was a couple of breaks down in the second set when he took what Fish perceived to be a tactical injury timeout and the players came together, alongside the umpire at the net after Mathieu had disputed a line call.
Fish's expletive ridden tirade was mainly to the umpire, who tried unsuccessfully to defend Mathieu's sportmanship and the Frenchman wisely retreated to the baseline to lose the set, but take the match in the decider.
On the betting front, successful wagers on Murray (twice), Ancic, Nalbandian and Del Potro led to a handy profit, which was somewhat dented by Gasquet's loss to Mathieu yesterday.
I'm going to have an interest in Murray, Ancic and possibly Nalbandian today and my main investments this week, rather unoriginally on Federer and Henin, play their respective matches today also.
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