Charleston WTA

Yesterday it was a very poor day for my pre-match bets: all three were completely wrong: Tatishvili was run over by Lisicki, the german girl looks at her ease on this surface (she won the title in 2009 and was quartefinalist last year).

My bad that beside that Tati +5.5 games posted yesterday I've also laid Lisicki and I wasn't able to decrease the liabilities.

As I expected Hantuchova-Erakovic was a better match for trading but unfortunately I experienced problems with the australian wallet and I couldn't enter that market. Erakovic won.

Other loss were the Putintseva +1.5 sets, at which I added an in-play small lay to Goerges. Goerges was never in danger red stayed there. The match wasn't televised.

Then there was Robson beating Cabeza-Candela.

Robson has been on a drift for the whole day but won in the end. That was I stupid pick though, since also the spaniard played a final on sunday at Osprey (a 50K $ tourney).

To save my day came Jankovic and Oudin. I can't say how much I was good on this one and how much luck was on my side.

Jankovic won the first set, not a surprise but also in that set there was the impression that Oudin was doing good things, she looked a bit to her limit, while Jankovic looked to have margin.

Anyway in the second set Oudin went on playing well while Jankovic instead of level up her game started being more faulty. Oudin served for the set at 5-4, was broken, but eventually won the set, she had like 7-8 set points.

Oudin winning that set was the key for my trading to go green, don't know what would have happened if Jankovic managed to force the american to the tie-break.

Having greened up I closed everything and I don't know what happened in the deciding set.

Looking at the result I'd say Ouding paid her effort, she was bound to keep it up and couldn't afford any drop of intesity to get the win; anyway I was happy with my green, that covered all my losses of the day and allowed me even a small gain, so I preferred not to risk any further (I'd have switched  all the green on Jankovic).

Later I watched Giorgi-Williams. The score says it right Williams had to fight, and Giorgi was putting big pressure during the rallies, but also Serena looked not very interested in the match.

A well focused Serena would have smashed up an opponent who made 12 double faults. 

Serena stays the one to beat but I wouldn't be shocked by a tank: she's defending champion but last year she went out of Miami at the quarterfinals. I've little laid Serena at 1.67 in the outright market.

I don't like anything today and I won't be live trading so my day is done.

 

   

Tokyo WTA 1R

One lone bet as there will be few first round for the ATP

T. Paszek - C. Giorgi: Giorgi 2 units @2.61
Giorgi came thruogh two hard round of the qualies so has had a good practice on these courts.
Her game as I've already said really suits to this kind of surfaces and she could be very dangerous even for top players, if only she manage to settle her nerves.
She's an hard hitter and huge server. From steady on the center of the baseline she delivers deep and hard to both sides.
Paszek is having a bad season, she's in a negative run on hardcourt with 6/12 W/L and in overall too 16/23.

There are couple of match with interesting odds which I won't risk though.
Schiavone @3.30 for example. Shvedova is one of my favourite in the WTA one of the most technically complete, being also a good double player, that plays aggressively from the baseline trying to win the point as soon as possible often approaching the net.
She can suddenly lose the tension and start playing bad, though, since her game is very wasteful from a nerves point of view so Schiavone, a mentally tough player, could exploit this moments.
The italian seems to have lost her better shape though and hasn't had a great record on hard so far in this season, her styles is not that bad also on hard and maybe she doesn't deserve such an odd, but I'll skip.  

Also the odds on Jovanovski look huge, Wozniacki has won a title after a whole year but that was her level, her true level, which is also becoming the level of Bojana.
The serbian girl is not one that got scared from tough match and her game is not so risky to make Wozniacki sure to win this simply returning everything up to an opponent's unforced.

USO R1 - Day 2

T Bellucci - P Andujar: pick Andujar @3.50 1 unit
I always thought Andujar to be a decent hardcourter for his tennis is pretty offensive.
Different from most (nearly totality) of spaniards he plays closer to the baseline, and attack from both sides, above all from forehand.
Bellucci has just had a great july getting many points from clay and that has probably made his season.
Despite Bellucci leading the head to head 3-0, all of them on clay, I consider Andujar techinically superior and also given he is better ranked (37 Andujar, 40 Bellucci) I'd made odds lower.

D Goffin - T Berdych: pick Goffin +2.5 set @1.95 2 units
I don't use this kind of selection often, but here this is going to be a must today.
Pick's made against Berdych mental grip that is never been so good and could easily drop a set give he also come from Winston-Salem Final played two days ago.
Goffin is a young talented with solid serve and grondstrokes that makes him able to bear the rallies against Berdych.

T Pironkova - C Giorgi: pick Giorgi @2.37 3 units
Despite there's "ITA" written next to Camila Giorgi she has really little to do with Italy. She's an argentinian that does her training in the USA.
And her tennis can be defined an american-one, done of great serve with a first ball speed that could work also in ATP, and aggressive groundstrokes.
Giving a look to her 2011 here http://www.tennisexplorer.com/player/giorgi/?annual=2011 , and her 2012 here: http://www.tennisexplorer.com/player/giorgi/?annual=2011 we see that she plays out of USA only in Grand Slams.
I think this year's Wimbledon run has helped her to find convinction in herself, and on the other hand has shown a Pironkova in great difficulty, as if she hasn't been working and that was happenning also last season.
So an ascending player against a descending one.
And surface will help more the powerful Giorgi than the crazy Pironkova who needs the crazy bounce of grass court.

B Jovanovski - M Barthel: pick Jovanovski @4.00 1 unit
Berthel is trying to find back herself after a couple of awful months.
Meanwhile Jovanvski is growing up.
Barthel has a good record on hard so far this year but going deep her opponents often were unrelevant ones that took her to be a bit overrated on later tournaments, like I find her to be here.

M Kirilenko - C Scheepers: pick Scheepers +1.5 set @2.46 1 unit
Another set handicap against a last weekend finalist.
And it was a very tough match for Kirilenko losing 7-6 7-5 to Kvitova.
Scheepers is a solid baseliner that could easily take advantage of a lower of tension.
Kirilenko is playing a lot since june: quarterfinalist at Wimbledon, fourth place in both singles and double at the Olyimpics, and final last week in New Haven.
Scheepers also leads the hardcourt head to head 2-1 (the total of the h2h is 2-2).

Rememeber this? http://bettobettingblog.blogspot.it/2012/08/us-open-draws.html
Radwanska from 65 to 48 and no match played, today's match against Bratchikova.

-0,5

Wimby Ladies' QF/ Gentlemen's R16

S Williams - P Kvitova: pick Kvitova @2.42 1 unit
T Paszek - Azarenka: pick Paszek @4.5 1 unit
A Radwanska - M Kirilenko: pick Kirilenko @4.33 1 unit

Seems the underdog fest, but at this point anything worth a (small) try.
1) Williams  - Kvitova could be one of the shortest match ever. Huge serve, and big winner on the return. The head to head are in Serena's favour, both played two years ago, one on a Wimbledon semifinal. Petra should be a bit moer experienced now.
2) The less convincing one, but Paszek is on a 9 win streak on grass, defeating some good grass courter like Vinci, Pironkova and Kerber. All favours on Vika fresh number 1 WTA... could it distract her? ... Oh a great funny thing: this match has been QF also last year, Vika won and then lost to Kvitova that could be again her opponent if Petra beats Serena. I say Vika dislike it, and she probably will knows who's her opponent when she get on the court.
3) This could be a long piece since I've seen bit of both previus matches of them.
From the start: Aga leads the h2h 5-2, and won last 4 in a row, but they haven't ever met on grass.
Aga's run has been much more hard than the Kiri's one: Vesnina, Watson, Giorgi for the polish; Cirstea and Peng for Kiri.
Both can play a versatile tennis, but Aga seems to be not in the mood of doing so (like it's said about Murray), so she prefers play unaggressive strokes, a meter above the net waiting for the opponents to get unbalanced, or an opponent's errors. Taking yesterday's match stats: Aga won 63 points, 30 were Giorgi's unforced and 11 are Aga's winners.
On Giorgi's serve Aga records 2 winners and 1 unforced. To me this mean that Aga is a good returner but doesn't take any risk. Obviously Giorgi serves very fast but how can you...? Hasn't Aga got any occasion to attack on a second serve? Has her never tried a long line deep return? NO. She rather return short, on the very centre of the field, or a bit deeper at the body sometimes, even if Giorgi could hit winner from there.
Unluckily Kiri is a bit smarter than Giorgi. Kiri can anticipate on mid court bounce to hit a winner from both side. Kiri will hit less winner than Giorgi but also Aga will have less unforced to help her. Kiri with the feet inside the field keeps the brain on, she place both it winners or place the ball and approach the net, not like Giorgi that in similar situations looks like she's got the brain on 'off mode' and hitted the ball hard nevermind were it'll go nor where the opponent's was placed nor what could she do if the opponents retourn it...
I'd like to say many other things (Kiri's deep serve, Kiri's slice bh) but it's enough for now.

I also have yesterday's pending: Fish and Mayer.

All picks lost -3
I've seen Vika playing some volleys, I'd never thought her to be able to, like she's still improving. 

Wimby QF

I haven't found yet the pictures I was looking for. It's about yesterday's Spain-Italy, a very funny moment: there's Casillas waving to Balotelli where he should aim, after the striker missed the gol with a shot hundreds metres high and wide (obviously this is followed by well spelled (!) 'vaffanculo').
Anyway... I also haven't done my homework: I promised my self I'd have done a review of the first week of Wimby, watching some highlights and studing some stats, but I didn't. So no review and no preview, just some picks.
I had a good sunday laying the draw on betfair, lot of fun from it, I'll write down some lines about it one day (there's enough about it on the web yet).

R Gasquet - F Mayer: pick Mayer @4.57 1 unit
Such a odd is very offensive toward Flo. What has he done to deserve it? He's survived to Tursunov, not a newbe on grass; Petzschner, without going to far with memory he has been finalist in Den Bosh just a week ago; Janowicz the one who defeated the one who defated Berdych. It's a medium high level run from Mayer.
Both Flo and Richie can play tennis, have varius stroke. And the one who shows the most variety is Mayer: it's in his play, he can hit a deep forehand then go short with a drop or slower with a slice, he plays backspin backhand though the two-handed. He's supported by a great serve.

J Tsonga - M Fish: pick Fish @5.05 1 unit
I think Fish is a bit underrated.
He won a hard match against an home player, Ward, at the fifth, with all the crowd... then won the slam boy Goffin as underdog.
So i think Fish has had his chance to go back home, he hasn't, so he should fight and he knows Jo has some bad moments.

M Sharapova - S Lisicki: pick Lisicki +5,5 @1.91 2 units
Last year in semifinal was 6-4 6-3 for Maria. So the line was winning.
Lisicki came off some hard matches maybe playing not on her standards for grass.
Hope Sabine will serve like she can and Maria doesn't find confidece in the return: the russian doesn't know  interlocutory hit and forcing on Sabine first serve is suicidal.

A Radwanska - C Giorgi: pick Giorgi +6 @1.93 2 units
Also Giorgi as winner @6 is not that bad.
Camila is a hard-hitter, has a good serve, I don't think it's going to be a 6-2 6-2 or something near it.

Other matches:
Apart from Federer, Djokovic and Murray every match deserve a try beacuse they are very close:
Baker's odd is very tempting, as the Shvedova's one; Azarenka and even Kvitova could suffer of the empiness they occasinally shows. Ferrer is on fire. Youzhny and Istomin can do anything, a sane Yuozhny should easily win, but... Vinci Paszek could be a funny match to watch and to pick something live

Picks on Mayer and Lisicki are won +4.39