Tennis 19th-24th May (ATP Casablanca/Poertschach/WTC); WTA (Strasbourg/Istanbul)

[engineer]

Many tournaments this week, but mediocre ones, will there be many "surprising" results just before the start of the French Open

[rcgills]

Yes, I'd suggest treading carefully this week, with Roland Garros just around the corner. The top players aren't going to want to take any risks at all with regard to injuries/fatigue, while some of the lower ranked players are going to be scheduled to play in the qualifying rounds for Roland Garros (draw for the qualifiers should appear on the RG website today).

No time to write any details on most of my fancies for today, but one I will mention, as it's an absolutely huge price - Kudryavtseva to beat King. King's career record on clay is an appalling 2-13, with the 2 wins coming against the unranked (and seemingly on the point of retirement, as the game v King is the last game listed for her on the WTA site) Bahia Mouhtassine and the world no. 460 Senoglu. Kudryavtseva is nothing special in general, but she's a capable player on clay, has an ITF level title and another runners up spot to her name on clay, and came through qualifying to reach the 3rd round of last year's French Open (eventually losing to Sharapova). She's ranked higher than King (103 v 116). The only slight downer is the fact they met in March, and King won comfortably 6-1 6-2, but that was on a hard court, where King is much more comfortable.

Kudryavtseva tb King @ 2.7 - 8pts (not often I stake that big, but the price is just too big to miss)

[rcgills]

Incidentally, that game I've mentioned starts in 10 minutes. Kudryavtseva now in to 2.5.

Other bets for me for today:

Lay Simon @ 1.52 v Serra to win 4pts
Lay Errani 2-0 v Dellacqua (not yet matched)
Verkerk to beat Vanek @ 2.64 2pts
Olaru to beat Peng (not yet matched)
Rodionova 2-0 v Vierin @ 1.77 4pts

[rcgills]

Originally Posted by rcgills

Incidentally, that game I've mentioned starts in 10 minutes.

Scrap that, Betfair had it wrong, doesn't start for another hour.

[engineer]

Yes, Betfair make quite often mistakes with the starting times of small tournaments...

Can be on Kudryavtseva also, really good value that one.

Some more from me later.

[engineer]

From RC's definitely like Serra and Olaru and I'll be on them too.

Don't see many chances for Dellacqua and Verkerk against Errani and Vanek respectively, may even go for Vanek, but haven't decided yet.

Best of luck to RC and all tennis punters

[engineer]

OK, here are my bets for today, no time for more explanations, sorry.

As mentioned before:

Kudryavtseva to beat King @2.48 - 4 pts

Serra to beat Simon @2.98 - 5 pts

Olaru to beat Peng @2.12 - 2.5pts

[engineer]

Dubois to beat Ditty @2.6 - 2pts. Two opponents in equally poor form, can't really separate them, so I'll go for the higher priced one.

Young to beat Meltzer @2.68 - 3 pts Quite good offer for me, the young American is very talented and can play tennis on clay, his opponent is struggling big time recently and is just one place before the Yank in the ranking. I don't see a reason not to go for the odds against American.

[rcgills]

Originally Posted by engineer

Don't see many chances for Dellacqua and Verkerk against Errani and Vanek respectively, may even go for Vanek, but haven't decided yet.

Verkerk coming back from a long injury lay-off, but won a challenger event in Athens on clay on his comeback last month. Vanek has also just won a challenger in Ostrava, but his last tournament saw him lose to the world no. 183 Franco Ferreiro. Verkerk has the better clay court history, certainly, as a runner-up at Roland Garros in 2003, but he's been unlucky with injuries. His comeback seems to be starting off well though, and I think he's a decent price.

As for laying Errani 2-0, I've backed her quite a few times in recent months and I've noticed on quite a few occasions that her serve lets her down. Can't go back and find the stats now for past tournaments, but I seem to remember some matches recently where I think she's only held 3 or 4 times in the whole match. She's been in decent form of late, but I'm still not convinced she can win this one without making life awkward for herself somewhere along the way.

Good luck with your bets anyway

[engineer]

Scuettler to beat Guccione @2.46 - 2pts
Can't miss that price on the German. Guccione enjoyed a good season on the US hard courts, but can't see him performing in the same way on clay. Schuettler can achieve some results here and should be able to beat the big serving Australian.

[engineer]

Cheers, RC, your opinion about Verkerk and Dellacqua sounds fair, I'll just give these two games a miss.

[engineer]

In the morning really liked Lopez to beat Kiefer @2.86 or thereabouts, but just heard of a conflict between the Spanish tennis federation and the players. Don't know whether Ferrer's performance yesterday had something common with that... Is there really such thing and can it affect players' motivation?

RC?

[rcgills]

Yes, the Spanish federation (more specifically the president, Muñoz) and the players aren't on very good terms at the moment.

Not sure exactly what the problem is, first I heard of it was when they were arguing over where to hold the Davis Cup semi, the players wanted it at sea level, the federation have decided to hold it in Madrid. The players (Nadal, Ferrero, Ferrer, Moyá, Verdasco, López, Almagro and Robredo) plus the coach then came out with a statement saying they refused to take part in any promotional activities all the time Muñoz is president.

However, they now say the issue isn't, and never was, the location of the DC semi. There's also stories around that Muñoz has been sending derogatory text messages to the players - I've not seen what he's actually said in the messages, but apparently he insults the players and points out how powerful a position he's in as president of the federation.

Whether that's anything to do with Ferrer's performance yesterday, I don't know. I don't know too much about the World Team Cup, but I'm struggling to see what the point of it is A team competition already exists in the Davis Cup, what's the point of the WTC, and especially, what's the point of playing it the week before Roland Garros? Are there any ranking points in it for the players? The only bets I can imagine possibly tempting me in that competition will be big-priced outsiders, other than that I wouldn't touch it with someone else's money.

[rcgills]

King v Kudryavtseva turning into a bit of a nightmare, King is now 6-1 2-0 up

Sorry to anyone that followed on that one

[engineer]

The Russian just won the 2nd set in the most dramatic, impossible and hardest way
Didn't have a single break point before the last two games of the set on King's serve.
Won the tiebreak quite easily, hope the American is too depressed to fight now