Showing posts with label Radwanska. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Radwanska. Show all posts

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Wimby Ladies' SF

In the end I made up my mind and here a pick also for today:

A Radwanska - A Kerber: pick Radwanska @2.42 2 units
I don't know what's behind the odds, but it's a bit of a surprise to find the one better ranked as underdog. Above all in a Wimbledon semi, where also people who don't know anything about tennis are tempted to try something; and majority of them go for the dog.
Few days ago I read some comments on an article, now I can't find, about a previus round.
These run like how Kerber, on her rise this year, changed her game. And the writer of the comments was shocked of how this changement was fast, he/she says that this has stared in US Open 2011. The changement took Kerber to be a defensive player, still bit atypical.
Radwanska has defeated Kerber only after that USO, when this Kerber transformation started.

I think that Serena is the true favourite in the other semi, still too powerfull for Vika. But it's a no bet for me.

Aga won. +2.84

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

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. 

Monday, July 2, 2012

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