OlymPICKs III and half

The 'half' stands for the third part had to be posted yesterday: I made my picks and started writing my piece when something stopped me, I don't even remember what, and in the whole day I haven't got back on.

Here's yesterday's:

Richard Gasquet - Marcos Baghdatis: Bagh to win @3.32 1 unit

Marin Cilic - Lleyton Hewitt: Hewitt to win @3.75 1 unit

But let's go on.

Roger Federer - Denis Istomin: pick Istomin @21.00 1 unit

Yeah, it's the King facing Istomin, but even Istomin doesn't worth this. 

I don't like him, I've watched few match of him in Wimby, where he had a great run, passing through an on-fire Seppi, Andreev, Federer's nightmare Falla and losing at the R16 7-5 in the fifth against Youzhny wasting some match point.

He's nothing special in technique, apart from a decent serve, he is slow on movement and doesn't hit that hard from both side, but he play on safety, with the ball well above the net, not giving pace to his opponent, and I can neatly see the Fed make lots of unforced on these weightless balls.

John Isner - Janko Tipsarevic: pick Isner @2.25 2 units

Yet two days ago I was against Tipso, I'll try again, this time facing Isner.

Maybe it's true that the real grass-court now are only in Newport, while all the others are going nearer to all other surface, Wimbledon's groundsmen admit that bounce are higher nowadays.

But Isner is always very tricky , and above all when playing for US: some months ago he beated Federer on clay in Switzerland and reapated against France in Davis Cup. 

David Ferrer - Kei Nishikori: pick Nishikori @5.33 1 unit

Can someone stop Ferru? He's succesfully playing since Auckland in genuary. Well he do this every season, building his ranking upon lower tournament, but seeing him doing great results also on grass well... it's weird that's all.

The young US-nippon talent has played about the half of Ferrer's matches, and his style is not even that energy wasteful, he's not an hard hitter and his movements are very gently, like the bally-dancer Davydenko, who he defeated in the previous round.

This is going to be a long baseline marathon match and even though the spirit Ferrer puts in every match I think he's going to have more difficultes than the odds shows, he should try more variation than he's used to, in order to pass through this gum-wall that will hit back everything.

Steve Darcis - Nicolas Almagro: pick Darcis @3.54 1 unit

I know this is going insane but this will be the last one.

Next round the winner among the two of them will play Murray.

So even losing to Darcis will be ok, no?

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga - Feliciano Lopez: pick Lopez @3.37 2 units

Jo comes from a 25-23 in the third against Raonic, a 4 hours match.

I can imagine the rallies hadn't go beyond the 3 hits, but it's hard the same. 

Jo won't be 100% fit, and Feliciano can be thougn on grass: leftie, great service, sliced backhand and great experience.

My odds on Lopez won't have gone over @2.50

Sabine Lisicki - Maria Sharapova: pick Lisicki @3.95 2 units

Well close to 4.00... just couple of weeks ago it was a 6-4 6-3 win for Sabine.

Maybe she's not going to replicate but again I'd made much lower odds

Close to hit the target with Sabine, I reckon that Sharapova playing in the same way in every situation, her not suffering lowering of focus.
Great delusion by F.Lopez, Almagro hate me, Roger (I read) not playing well and also got a rain suspension, Ferru finally stopped by Nishi, good work by Isner in the tie-break. Saved my day.
+0,83

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