Federer caused the "upset", Murray won in four sets ,Derry City edged home, but Tiger Woods disappointed, he improved by two strokes from R1 but it was not enough to win his three ball, Webb Simpson, whom I suggested at a "fun" price of 22-1 to lead after day 1, of course leads after day 2 !!
Change of plan today, J-League and Wimbledon in this email , no Scandinavian match after all, but a follow up email in about 90 minutes with tonight's MLS fixtures, I got my dates wrong and thought all of the US fixtures were on Sunday this week !
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gifted too many, but it is hard to see how even a fully fit Radwanska is going to overly hurt her opponent and having withdrawn from the doubles citing a respiratory illness yesterday, we cannot be sure that she is even that.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now, as she says her throat has been bad for several days, but not troubling her on court and plenty of players have withdrawn from doubles previously, when going deep in the singles event.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.
J-LEAGUE:
KASHIMA REYSOL - NAGOYA GRAMPUS
Hard not to see goals here and both making a contribution, hosts have scored in their last ten starts, 24 goals in total, Nagoya have scored in 9 from 10 J-League games, 16 in total and have scored six in their last three road games.
H2h record sees the last ten meetings averaging 3.1 goals and both have scored in eight of those.
Kashiwa Reysol defender Hiroki Sakai has now moved to Germany, no injury problems for them otherwise, hard to see how an already porous defence, no team outside the bottom five have conceded more, is going to be less so with the loss of such a key right sided defender.
The situation is unchanged at Nagoya, Keiji Tamada, Naoshi Nakamura and Ryota Isomura all remain out, but have been missing for some time, very experienced goalkeeper Seigo Narazaki had a small knee operation, but is still hopeful of playing, but his loss will not harm any bets on this game, which have to be of the goals variety.
Both teams look far happier on the front foot and will surely be looking for the three points that will keep them in the title hunt. The visitors will lose top scorer Kensuke Nagai (8 goals) to the Olympics after today and play the league leaders next week. I think they will be especially motivated today, they can score a couple and if the 2.30 for them to do so was freely available, that would be my pick. Instead I will have to opt for over 3 goals @ circa 1.95 on the asian market.
SANFRECCE HIROSHIMA - JUBILO IWATA
Visistors stopped the rot with a win over FC Tokyo last week, but I have to feel that had more to do with their opponents form and it may just have papered over the cracks, Jubilo have conceded ten goals in their last four starts and will sorely miss Baek Sung Dong ( 2 goals - six assists) and as discussed last week, they have scored two or more goals in every match where he has played at least an hour. They will also be without keeper Naoki Hatta and his experienced back up, a long term injury still keeps striker Hidetaka Kanazono out.
Hosts are without defender Hwang Seok Ho who has gone off with the Korean Olympic team already, midfielder Satoru Yamagishi is a big doubt. Plenty of goals when these two play, they both sit in the top three and are two of the top three scorers also, but defensively, Jubilo look far more vunerable at present and when they lose on the road, it is normally with the concession of quite a few goals. I like Hiroshima to win this at around the even money mark and feel they might score a few, 3.50 + for them to score three or more appeals.
YOKOHAMA MARINOS- CEREZO OSAKAGoals
remain a huge problem for Marinos, just two in their last five league
starts, however, they have gone unbeaten over that sequence with four
draws and a 1-0 win over a flagging FCTokyo, but as I said last week
that can only carry on for
so long and sooner or later, they need to start scoring more freely
They will again miss injured captain Shunsuke Nakamura
today, he has made a big contribution to their tiny goals scored column
and it is very hard to see the hosts scoring more than a single goal.Hard not to see goals here and both making a contribution, hosts have scored in their last ten starts, 24 goals in total, Nagoya have scored in 9 from 10 J-League games, 16 in total and have scored six in their last three road games.
H2h record sees the last ten meetings averaging 3.1 goals and both have scored in eight of those.
Kashiwa Reysol defender Hiroki Sakai has now moved to Germany, no injury problems for them otherwise, hard to see how an already porous defence, no team outside the bottom five have conceded more, is going to be less so with the loss of such a key right sided defender.
The situation is unchanged at Nagoya, Keiji Tamada, Naoshi Nakamura and Ryota Isomura all remain out, but have been missing for some time, very experienced goalkeeper Seigo Narazaki had a small knee operation, but is still hopeful of playing, but his loss will not harm any bets on this game, which have to be of the goals variety.
Both teams look far happier on the front foot and will surely be looking for the three points that will keep them in the title hunt. The visitors will lose top scorer Kensuke Nagai (8 goals) to the Olympics after today and play the league leaders next week. I think they will be especially motivated today, they can score a couple and if the 2.30 for them to do so was freely available, that would be my pick. Instead I will have to opt for over 3 goals @ circa 1.95 on the asian market.
SANFRECCE HIROSHIMA - JUBILO IWATA
Visistors stopped the rot with a win over FC Tokyo last week, but I have to feel that had more to do with their opponents form and it may just have papered over the cracks, Jubilo have conceded ten goals in their last four starts and will sorely miss Baek Sung Dong ( 2 goals - six assists) and as discussed last week, they have scored two or more goals in every match where he has played at least an hour. They will also be without keeper Naoki Hatta and his experienced back up, a long term injury still keeps striker Hidetaka Kanazono out.
Hosts are without defender Hwang Seok Ho who has gone off with the Korean Olympic team already, midfielder Satoru Yamagishi is a big doubt. Plenty of goals when these two play, they both sit in the top three and are two of the top three scorers also, but defensively, Jubilo look far more vunerable at present and when they lose on the road, it is normally with the concession of quite a few goals. I like Hiroshima to win this at around the even money mark and feel they might score a few, 3.50 + for them to score three or more appeals.
Cerezo
Osaka have sold midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake ( 2 goals - 4 assists) to
FC Nuremberg and his hugely influential partner Kim Bo Kyung ( 7 goals -
2 assists) has joined the Korean Olympic team . They are big losses,
but things will get worse for them shortly as Yamaguchi and Ogihari will
also be off to the Olympics after today, so sitting just one place,
albeit five points outside the drop zone, they really need a result
today and to retain that security buffer.
Hard to see either scoring twice and when that is the case, the draw is the obvious option and makes most appeal here at odds of circa 3.60.
Hard to see either scoring twice and when that is the case, the draw is the obvious option and makes most appeal here at odds of circa 3.60.
Good Luck.
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