HAPPY HOUR !

SUNDAY JULY 8th

I was very pleased with the J-League previews yesterday, three goals in the Kashima game with Nagoya scoring two, Hiroshima won and Yokohama-Cerezo drew. Elsewhere, the Ladies final went "over" and in the MLS , Real Salt Lake landed the handicap bet and also scored those three goals (see below) and all in all, it was a very good day.

Today, I have two strong bets in the MLS games and a huge priced selection for the final round of the USPGA event, still waiting for all of those golf odds to come out, so will include that in the follow up email at midday.

That doesn't leave much for this email, just the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Andy Murray.

Murray leads the h2h 9-7 with every single meeeting being on hardcourts, either indoor or out, surprisingly, six of the last seven have been won in straight sets. In the last ten, which go back over four years, Murray has served more aces in eight, they tied once and Federer served more, just one more, in that straight sets Aussie final win in 2010. Given those stats and the fact that even the casual tennis observer will have noticed a huge improvement in the British player's serve over the last 12 months and he looks a decent quote @ around 1.80 + to serve the most aces, very little liquidity at present but there is up to 1.86 for tiny money on the exchanges and a couple of companies also offer Murray with a handicap start in this market, which even at low odds, cannot be right. If you watched Federer destroying Youzhny in the quarters, you might be amazed to know that he lost the "ace race "  2-3 in that, despite serving fantastically well, losing only five game and winning 88% of points on his first serve !

This is time for Murray to step up and if he can come out strong and by that I do not even mean he has to win the first set, just be competitive, I think he will put in a big showing. In that Aussie final, Murray stepped up from his performance in their previous grand slam final two years earlier and should have taken it into a fourth set, he made errors both times he held set points in that tie break.

The Brit's second serve is hugely improved, Federer is no longer as good a volleyer ( not much practice ?) and Murray will probably try and pull him into the net, physically Murray is much the stronger now and the longer this goes the better he will get. I think Murray will take at least two sets, so like the 2.80 on the exchanges for him to win outright, as firstly, I think it is too big anyway and secondly he seems sure to trade a lot lower at some stage, which will give opportunities to take  a profit.

Good Luck.

REAL SALT LAKE- PORTLAND TIMBERS

Time for RSL to get back to winning ways. I have been impressed by them at times this season, in particular a fairly recent 3-0 win at Chivas, that is the only game that their opponent has lost in ten starts and it came shortly after a couple of really solid performances from the hosts, whom you may recall, I had put up as a potential big improver ahead of their LAG derby game in late May. That was the only blip for Chivas since then , but to be honest, RSL could have won by five, they had a "good" goal disallowed with the score still 0-0 and it was 85 minutes before the hosts had an attempt on goal. Real have not won in four since then, they blew a 2-0 lead at home to Galaxy in the first and I think that really knocked their confidence. the next game they lost again to San Jose, a match they should have won easily, having 19 attempts on goal,including two headed off the line and two completely open goals missed.

They steadied the ship with a 0-0 draw with Seattle in midweek, when they introduced defender Kwame Watson-Siriboe and winger Kenny Mansally, again, they had chances enough to have won with ease and the goals are going to start to flow again shortly. They have a clean sheet to console themselves with and the overall performance was very solid. Sounders admitted they were outplayed and with the new additions , who will have had a little more training with the squad and they should have Tony Beltran back tonight, RSL are only going to get stronger. They are a whole host of post match interviews below and I have highlighted some of the more inportant comments in red type.

Portland are very poor travellers and although buoyed by the win over San Jose, they will have travelled Portland- Colorado-Portland- Salt Lake this week and whilst not huge distances by MLS standards it is still hour after hour in the air and transit and very little training ground prep for this match.I like the home win and the 3.25 for them to score three or more, as I think that when they get one this time, the others will flow, but will take 1.25 units Real salt Lake -1 ball 2.07 asian line. Real scored three in the reverse fixture back in March which they won by the odd goal in five, they had 17 attempts that day and were a little beat up and short of offensive options

going into the match.

WIMBLEDON : LADIES SINGLES FINAL: SERENA WILLIAMS - AGNIESZKA RADWANSKA

Serena leads the h2h 2-0 and has yet to lose more than four games in any set to her opponent so far, however, those meetings were both in 2008, when Radwanska was still a teenager and she has made her big breakthrough this season. I do think that Radwanska is a totally lost cause, she has the poise on court to hang in with Serena, which is what you need to do and makes so few unforced errors that Williams will have to win every point, she will not be gifted too many, but it is hard to see how even a fully fit Radwanska is going to overly hurt her opponent and having withdrawn from the doubles citing a respiratory illness yesterday, we cannot be sure that she is even that.

Having said that, it might be that the Polish camp are trying to take some of the pressure off their girl by releasing this news now, as she says her throat has been bad for several days, but not troubling her on court and plenty of players have withdrawn from doubles previously, when going deep in the singles event. Radwanska, when she gets into a rally with Williams, will be returning a lot of balls and aside from power has all the other shots in her game. She will probably look to mix things up ,return some balls down the middle to cut out the angles for Williams who can be prone to overhit these, use the drop shot quite a bit to try and bring the US player in and then use her hard to read backhand pass to win the point. She has a really well placed first serve and is prepared to volley behind it, we will not see many outright aces from her, but she will get a few cheap service points of her own. I still feel that Serena is way too short and would not be surprised to see a long battle today, not a match to get involved in now, but my pick would still have to be "over" 19 games 1.885 with Pinnacle . You are not going to overpower Serena at this Wimbledon, but we have already seen her have a problem with guile and Radwanska has that in spades, she just needs to keep Williams on court long enough for it to take effect, in second sets against Zheng, Shevdova, Azaranka and even to a lesser degree Kvitova, she has shown a real vunerability.

THE ABOVE TWO PREVIEWS AND THE J-LEAGUE MATCHES BELOW MAKE UP THE FULL CONTENT FROM SATURDAY'S EMAILS, APART FROM SOME INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS AND WEATHER NEWS FROM ONE OTHER MLS FIXTURE.  

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