Tennis 7-13 May (ATP Rome, WTA Berlin and Prague)

[bulit]

1.16 N Almagro 4.50 T Henman 11:00
1.36 T Berdych 3.00 J Nieminen 11:00
1.07 J Acasuso 7.50 M Verkerk 11:00
1.40 J I Chela 2.75 M Gicquel 11:00
1.44 D Ferrer 2.62 I Andreev 11:00
1.40 J Blake 2.75 G Monfils 11:00
1.50 D Tursunov 2.50 J Bjorkman 11:00
1.40 A Murray 2.75 G Simon 11:00
1.53 A Calleri 2.37 P Starace 11:00
1.33 R Soderling 3.25 B Becker 11:00
1.57 C Moya 2.25 M Baghdatis 11:00
1.57 T Haas 2.25 R Stepanek 11:00
1.72 R Ginepri 2.00 D Bracciali 11:00

odds are from ladbrokes.com

This is my first thread with tennis and I hope that someone will enjoy me.
This week is very hard for betting because this is masters tournaments but I will try to take some bets.
On first look I'm intersting for J I Chela,Almagro,Berdych.

Chela is in great form now and he was great in last few tournaments. On the other side Gicquel has negative score this year and he likes only hard ground becuse he has I great service. I think Chela is easy win and he will be one of my bets tommorow.

Almagro is also in great form and he won one tournament two weeks ago and he plays against Henman who's very old and he is not in form because he almost didn't play this year.
Berdych was playing against Nieminen,I think 2 or 3 weeks ago and he beat him very easy 2:0 so I don't see the reason why he wouldn't do that again.

This is some picks for tommorow but I'm still not sure in anything until I don't see full list of tennis for monday because probably there is some challenger tournament. They are much beter for betting because the odds are biger and there is a different between that players so I must find some challenger for monday.
GL and I hope that someone will be interesting for tennis this week

[rcgills]

Hi Bulit. Good to see someone else interested in tennis betting.

Wouldn't argue with any of your picks there. I don't normally like betting on very short-priced favourites, I normally prefer to pick outsiders I think are over-priced, with a view to laying them off if they get into a decent position.

I could've sworn I remembered Berdych playing and beating Nieminen a few weeks ago, but I've checked the H2H on both the ATP site and TennisInsight, and neither of them have any mention of it According to ATP, the 2 have never played each other, according to TennisInsight they met in the 2004 Madrid Masters (Berdych won in 3 sets).

Anyway, a few bets I'm interested in for today:

Delic to beat Safin. Safin having a pretty poor season by his standards, and in his last 4 tournaments he's lost to Bolelli, Vliegen, Lopez and Mahut. He's never made it past the 3rd round of this tournament. It'll need Safin to have an off-day for this one to come in, but Delic has the potential to capitalise if he does.

Delic @ 3.6 (Sporting Odds) 2pts

Bracciali to beat Ginepri. Two players in terrible form, but I think Bracciali just has the edge and is slightly less bad than Ginepri at the moment. Ginepri also terrible on clay, 22-29 for his career, as opposed to Bracciali's marginally better 49-48. Add to that the fact that Bracciali has "home" advantage, and I'd make him marginal favourite, yet the bookies have it the other way around.

Bracciali @ 2.06 (Betfair) 2pts

Tursunov to beat Bjorkman. Bjorkman absolutely terrible on clay. 0-4 for the past 12 months, 9-35 for his career. Has only won 1 match in this tournament in 7 attempts (although to be fair he's had some tough matches - Federer, Hewitt and Safin). Tursunov leads 2-0 on H2H, on Indoor hard and Grass courts, where Bjorkman's game is stronger. If he can't beat Tursunov there, I can't see him beating him on clay.

Tursunov @ 1.285 (Sporting Odds) 4pts

Back in a minute with some outright bets

[rcgills]

For the outright bets, I reckon the best option to find a bit of value is to avoid the quarters that Nadal and Federer are in (yes, I know, hardly rocket science really ). With that in mind, I reckon Ferrero may be worth a shot from the 3rd quarter - top seeds there are Davydenko and Robredo, I reckon Ferrero on his day is capable of beating either of those, and Cañas is also in there, I'd say he's a bigger danger than either of the 2 seeds. Murray and Safin in there as well. Still, Murray, Cañas and Robredo are all in the same 1/8 of the draw, so they'd have to fight it out among themselves before meeting (presumably) one of Ferrero, Safin (unless he loses to Delic, which he hopefully will ) or Davydenko in the quarters.

And in the 2nd quarter of the draw, I think Roddick looks a very nice price. OK, I know he's not the best on clay, but apparently the surface is quite quick here in Rome, and he made the QF last year. Gonzalez, Blake and Ferrer the other seeds from this quarter, with the likes of Gaudio and Chela as dangerous non-seeds, maybe Andreev too. Roddick was trading at 250 a couple of hours ago, and while I was faffing about that's gone, it's now 190. I'm going to try and get matched at 250 anyway, and if not I'll maybe go with Chela at around 260 instead.

[rcgills]

Have edited the title of the thread, by the way, just in case anyone's interested in the women's tennis too.

Only one bet for me so far, have backed Chakvetadze outright at 32. The bottom half of the draw looks much weaker to me - seeds in the top half are Henin, Na Li, Hantuchova, Jankovic, Kuznetsova, Peer, Dementieva and Petrova. In the bottom half, seeds are Mauresmo, Srebotnik, Chakvetadze, Safina, Hingis, Schnyder, Ivanovic and Garbin. Bearing in mind Mauresmo's just back from injury, she may not yet be 100%, and I reckon Chakvetadze has a very good chance of getting through the bottom half of the draw. In very good form this year, 21-5 so far, the only slight worry is that she withdrew from her QF against Jankovic in Warsaw last week when a set and 3-1 down. Presumably though if she's competing here it can't have been anything too serious.

Chakvetadze to win @ 32 (Betfair) 1.5pts

[rcgills]

Not been matched on Roddick, but got 300 on Chela, and 220 on Ferrero. 1.5pts on each. Although Ferrero's not exactly off to a flier, broken already and 0-2 down to Hrbaty Still early days though

[bulit]

Andreev is in good form and he lost last week against week from Djokovic 2:1 in sets and in third set he lost in tie break so I will go on him OVER against Ferer and probably will play him in double with Soderling to beat Becker.

Andreev OVER 19 @1.85
Soderling 1 @1.33 .....6 points.
I agree with you for Delic he is very strong player and he could suprice Safin who hadn't great year for now. All in all not good day for betting tommorow will be more bets from me.
Good luck rcgills

[Wittmann 44]

A potential shock today might be Melzer to beat Canas. Canas is not 100% fit. He retired in Munich with a stomack muscle pull and he needed 3 sets in the qualifiers to see off Serra. One previous meeting in the David Cup this February which Canas won in 3 sets on a carpet surface. Canas has played a lot of tennis in the last two weeks so might not be the freshest.

Melzer at the lower World series events has a good record but he doesn't generally do well at the Masters although he does tend to be competitive as in his 4 of his last 5 clay Masters defeats he has nicked a set in each.

Lay Canas @ 1.24 - Risk 1 Unit to win 5.17 Units
Canas 2-1 @ 5.00 1 Unit

Both at Betfair

[bulit]

Tuesday 8th of May, 2007

ATP ROME 8 May

1.36 T Berdych 3.00 J Nieminen 12:00
1.40 J I Chela 2.75 M Gicquel 12:00
1.44 D Ferrer 2.62 I Andreev 12:00
1.40 J Blake 2.75 G Monfils 12:00
1.50 C Moya 2.50 M Baghdatis 12:00
1.57 T Haas 2.25 R Stepanek 12:00
1.36 R Gasquet 3.00 F Verdasco 12:00
1.36 M Youzhny 3.00 J Benneteau 12:00

Qatar Telecom German Open


2.00 K Kanepi 1.72 K Bondarenko 09:00
1.83 M Muller 1.83 E Daniilidou 09:00
1.25 A Chakvetadze 3.75 S Stosur 09:00
1.61 L Dominguez Lino 2.20 E Vesnina 09:00
1.22 S Peng 4.00 A Petkovic 09:00
2.10 F Pennetta 1.66 J Vakulenko 10:30
1.53 K Srebotnik 2.37 M Tu 10:30
1.50 E Dementieva 2.50 M Santangelo 11:00
1.72 Z Yan 2.00 K Barrois 11:00
1.44 E Loit 2.62 E Likhovtseva 11:30
1.72 F Schiavone 2.00 A Bondarenko 12:00
2.20 G Voskoboeva 1.61 V Ruano Pascual 12:00
1.14 S Bammer 5.00 A Roesch 12:30
1.08 A Ivanovic 7.00 L Granville 12:30
1.36 A Medina Garrigues 3.00 A Rezai 13:00
1.25 P Schnyder 3.75 R Vinci 14:00
4.00 M Camerin 1.22 J Zheng 14:30
1.16 D Hantuchova 4.50 Z Ondraskova 15:30

[bulit]

Bammer,S Peng,Hantuchova, Zheng are my tips on first ticket for tommorow but for medium stake and I will play on them with -1 handicap.
It's raining in Rome and Berlin so there is a lot's of matches from first day.
GL

[bulit]

From higher odds I fancy L Dominguez Lino,whos in great form this month and with positive score this season,and I like Srebotnik,Schnyder and Dementieva over 19 all for low stake

[rcgills]

Unlucky with the Canas bet, Wittmann. Looked like Melzer was sticking with him reasonably well in the first set before getting broken towards the end, and then Canas just got away from him in the 2nd set.

Tursunov and Bracciali won for me, although Tursunov made real hard work of it. Delic is yet to play. Went for a short odds accumulator too just for a bit of added interest through the day, and as usual, there's always one that lets you down - in my case it was Murray . Ferrero v Hrbaty was like a women's game today - deciding set, Ferrero was 5-2 up with 6 of the 7 games going against serve. Hrbaty broke, held and had break points to level it at 5-5 before Ferrero finally got his arse into gear and won a service game, so he's safely into the 2nd round.

Anyway, onto tomorrow. 4 that have caught my eye. Ladies first:

Santangelo to beat Dementieva. Santangelo in decent form, and had an excellent win against Petrova in Warsaw last week. Dementieva just back from quite a lengthy injury lay off, this is only her 2nd tournament since February 18th. Hopefully Santangelo can give her a decent game here.

Vinci to beat Schnyder. Schnyder not a player that's ever really impressed me, and seems to be sliding even further this season. Vinci has already won one tournament on clay this season, a Tier III event in Bogota.

And in the men's tournament in Rome:

Bolelli to beat Massu. Bolelli having an excellent season and, going by stats, seems to be a good clay court player (32-12 for the past year on clay). Won his latest tournament in Tunis on clay, and in the Barcelona tournament before that, knocked out Safin in the first round. Massu not in the greatest of form, and not sure he should be such a clear favourite here.

Llodra to beat O Rochus. Olivier Rochus not having a good time on clay recently, 3-7 for the past 12 months. Llodra not much better, 8-5, but he's available at around 2.9, looks quite a big price to me. H2H 4-1 in favour of Rochus, but they've never met on clay.

Bolelli @ 2.5 (Sporting Odds) 2pts
Lay Schnyder @ 1.24 (Betfair) liability 1.5pts

And as Betfair for some reason are taking ages to credit my winnings on Bolelli, I've not got the funds just yet to place the other 2 bets (well at least not at Betfair, and their odds seem better there than at Sporting Odds), so the Llodra and Dementieva bets will have to wait until tomorrow.

[rcgills]

I see you like betting on the number of games, Bulit. Not a market I've ever really looked into much before, to be honest. Which bookies offer that?

Nice comfortable win for you yesterday on Soderling too

[bulit]

Very good and interesting tips from you rcgills.
Santangelo is in good form for now but I still believe in over on this match. I completly agree with you for Bolelli. Bolelli is in great form and I was watching him few weeks ago and he is very strong player and this is his court. On the other side Massu not in form for now and he prefer hard court so Bolelli could easy beat him. Bolelli will be in some combo tommorow

[bulit]

Originally Posted by rcgills

I see you like betting on the number of games, Bulit. Not a market I've ever really looked into much before, to be honest. Which bookies offer that?

Nice comfortable win for you yesterday on Soderling too

I can't betting on internet because it's very hard in my countrie but my local bookies gave me plenty games on tennis which are very interesting like:
Winner of first set,number of gems in first set, handicap winner, handicap gems and the odds are pretty good
but the problem is I can play two matches and I must put 4 at least.

[Beanie]

Nice to see a lively tennis thread chaps - I'll join you tomorrow