USO - Day 4

Nicolas Almagro - Philipp Petzschner: pick Petzschner @5.00 2 units
I fear here is the fan who's speaking.
Two tennis-style facing here: the all-around and vintage tennis of the german, and the baseline top-spinned of the spaniard.
In common there's a solid serve also here for different reason.
The battle will develop on the backhand cross and Almagro's one-handed one could suffer on the long run to lift up Petz's slices. This can affect Almagro in two ways: he'll shift on his left to play the forehand, opening the court so that Petz can play winner with his killer forehand; Almagro can't push his backhand down the line (his best solution)  against the weightless balls he'll receive.
Almagro will play almost from the stands so Picasso needs to be mind-plugged to avoid errors above all if he'll be very high on the court risking to find himself too close to the bounce.

Sofia Arvidsson - Ana Ivanovic: pick Arvidsson @4.00 2 units
Too much high this odd, Ana can't be such a favourite against anyone reacently.
Head to head says 4-1 in Ana's favour but most belong to her best period.
Most of my fear goes to Sofia's service, she has the highest ball lift and windy days affect her, there was a bit of wind in this days.

Yaroslava Shvedova - Roberta Vinci: Shvedova @2.25 2 units
Although it was a bit of friendly match between Shvedova and King (they're double partner), Slava showed a great shape.
She got many point on King's second hitting winning returns (77% points won on King's 2nd serve), King and Vinci second serve are not much different.
Also in the rally she showed skills: preferring to lead with deep groundstrokes from still position on the baseline, she also could play on the run.
Sometimes she couldn't find the right distances from the ball and sticked.
Against Vinci could be tricky for her with the italian old-fashioned tennis that could not to give her the pace she need, though I think on the long run the power and fit of Slava could do the difference as her service is harder to break.

Dominika Cibulkova - Bojana Jovanovski: pick Jovanovski @3.75 1 unit
Great come back in the first round for the young serbian against a Barthel that was said was suffering the hot temperature.
She's improving her ranking and also finding spot in the Fed Cup over player like Jankovic and Ivanovic.
She prefers fast surfaces were her heavy balls can give a bad day to many players.
Cibulkova is one of the best returner in the WTA, since her serve can't be fast enough being very short.
Cibu's matches usually are very nervy, she can insult her opponent for the whole match, but Bojana doesn't look to me one of those drama-player, she's regular and doesn't change her plans at the first difficulty.

Vera Dushevina - Sara Errani: pick Dushevina @5.50 1 unit
Errani could lost to anyone who's little motivated and focused to hit an offensive return yet on the first serve.
Just dropping a set against the young spanish girl Muguruza in the first round is an indication of how she's far from her clay performances.

Galina Voskoboeva - Andrea Hlavackova: pick Hlavackova @1.80 2 units
Nearly even odds for them but season results shows an horrible shape for Voskoboeva, an 11/17 score for her.
Hlavacoka, on the contrary, has found some continuty also as single player, not a relevant result as she starts from the qualies in major tournaments, but anyway some good runs like the one on Cincinnati where she lost 6-4 7-6 from an on-fire Kerber on round of 16 (Andrea played the qualies).

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.

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