Nadal wins in straight sets in New York

Tennis Betting Lines

08/31/2010 - Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Top-seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal was a straight-set winner over Teymuraz Gabashvili in the opening round of the U.S. Open, while former runner-up Novak Djokovic and surging American Mardy Fish were a pair of hard-fought winners.

Nadal, the reigning Wimbledon and French Open champion who is seeking his third straight Grand Slam title and first-ever trip into the U.S. Open final, needed just under three hours to advance into the second round to set up a match with Denis Istomin, who beat Maximo Gonzalez, 7-5, 7-5, 6-1.

The eight-time major champion Nadal was able to dominate Gabashvili's second serve, winning 51 percent of the points on his opponent's lesser serve. He fired 30 winners and seven aces in the 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 victory.

Djokovic outlasted fellow Serb Viktor Troicki 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Djokovic, as he has in the past, struggled mightily amid some very hot conditions here on Day 2, as on-court temperatures soared well over 100 degrees.

But the third seed held on and prevailed in 3 hours, 40 minutes, despite a 23- ace barrage from the capable Troicki.

This marked Djokovic's 11th career five-set win.

The former Australian Open champion Djokovic was the 2007 U.S. Open runner- up to Roger Federer.

Up next for Djokovic will be talented German Philipp Petzschner.

The 19th-seeded Fish needed all five sets to get past game Czech Jan Hajek 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 on the grounds at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The Minnesota native Fish moved on in 2 hours, 36 minutes on the Grandstand Court.

"I was lucky to turn it around and play a little more aggressive," Fish said. "I was playing a little too defensive."

Fish has now won 17 of his last 19 matches, including a pair of titles and a runner-up finish against the great Federer in Cincinnati.

Other top-10 seeds who advanced were eighth-seeded Fernando Verdasco, who topped Fabio Fognini 1-6, 7-5, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3, and 10th-seeded David Ferrer, who beat Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.

The first eye-catching upset of the fortnight came when French veteran Arnaud Clement cut down 16th-seeded Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis in five sets, 6-3, 2-6, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5.

Clement advanced in 3 hours, 27 minutes against his fellow former Australian Open runner-up Baghdatis. who swatted 22 aces, but also tallied 48 unforced errors in a losing effort.

Baghdatis reached a U.S. Open Series final in Washington, D.C. several weeks ago.

Also advancing was American James Blake, who has made it to the third round in each of the last seven times he's participated in this tournament. Blake beat Kristof Vliegen 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.

Canadian Peter Polansky knocked out 30th-seeded Argentine Juan Monaco 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3. Additionally Julien Benneteau defeated 28th-seeded Radek Stepanek 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

In other action involving seeds, No. 23 Feliciano Lopez of Spain handled Colombian Santiago Giraldo 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and France's Jeremy Chardy took out No. 24 Latvian Ernests Gulbis 6-2, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4. No. 31 David Nalbandian beat Rik De Voest 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 6-4.

Argentine Eduardo Schwank dismissed former U.S. Open semifinalist Robby Ginepri of the United States 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 4-6, 6-3.

Additional first-round wins came for Petzschner, Spaniard Tommy Robredo, Pablo Cuevas, Benoit Paire, Florent Serra, Adrian Mannarino, Benjamin Becker, Istomin and Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver.

The 2010 U.S. Open champion will collect at least $1.7 million.

Lasveggas Tennis Betting News

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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