Quote:
Originally Posted by engineer
Bad day yesterday with Bammer performing awfully and Schiavone raising her game a lot. She might give some resistance to Henin today...
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Was thinking along those lines myself, Engineer. Henin hasn't looked convincing in recent weeks - she's dropped sets to Pironkova, Bacszinsky and Srebotnik in the last few weeks. And although the H2H is 3-0 to Henin, Schiavone has kept it close in all 3 of them - she took a set in their first meeting before losing 4-6 7-5 7-5, in the second meeting here in Dubai in 2006 she went down 6-4 7-6, and then finally in this year's Australian Open she went down 7-5 6-4.
On that basis the handicap market (Sporting Odds have 1.833 on Schiavone +4.5 games) and the total games market (1.833 for >20.5 games) both stand out to me as looking like pretty decent bets - both those bets would've come in for all 3 previous meetings between these two, and given Henin's recent struggles and Schiavone's excellent form this week against Bartoli and Bammer, I'd say they stand a very good chance again in this game. Also wouldn't rule out a lay of Henin 2-0 @ 1.41