 |
 Basketball Betting |
 |
||||
|
 |
||||
|
||||
Serena outlasts Dementieva to reach fifth Wimbledon finalTennis Betting Lines07/02/2009 - Wimbledon, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In one of the best women's matches played here in some time, two-time champion Serena Williams snuck past Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva on Thursday to reach her fifth Wimbledon final. The second-seeded former world No. 1 Williams outlasted fourth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 8-6 in Thursday's thrilling first women's semifinal at the venerable All England Club. The reigning Australian Open and U.S. Open titlist Williams also topped Dementieva in a semifinal at the Australian Open back in January. Serena will meet top-ranked Russian Dinara Safina or her third-seeded sister Venus in Saturday's finale. Venus beat Serena in last year's championship match here, as Venus captured her second straight and fifth overall Wimbledon championship. This marks the first time since 2006 that all four top-seeded women reached the semifinals at a Grand Slam event. Serena and Venus are former world No. 1s, which means three of the four semifinalists have held the coveted top ranking. Serena and Dementieva traded breaks in the first two games of the match on Day 10 and Williams appeared on the verge of another break in the eighth game with a 40-15 lead. Dementieva, however, dug out of the hole to hold serve and the set eventually went to a tiebreak on yet another hot, sunny day here. A pair of Williams errors gave Dementieva the advantage in the tiebreak. The American ripped a forehand wide and netted another forehand on consecutive points to give the Russian a 6-3 edge. Dementieva quickly gave one back with a double fault and misfired on her next serve, but Williams blasted a forehand wide on the second serve to give Dementieva the opening set. In an equally-as-tight second set, Dementieva eventually had opportunities to break Serena to knot the stanza at 6-all, especially on one particular point when the athletic Russian swatted a two-handed backhand out despite having a wide-open court. Serena would wind up with a hold to force a deciding third set. In the dramatic final set, Dementieva appeared to assume some control when Serena double-faulted and then netted a forehand to give the Russian a break and a 3-1 lead. But Dementieva was unable to consolidate the break, as her American counterpart broke right back and then held her serve to level the third at 3-3. The two stars then stayed on serve over the next several games, trading monster forehands and backhands from the baselines. Following a Dementieva hold, the Russian got herself to a match point in the 10th game of the stanza, but a gutsy Serena staved it off by following up a net approach with a clutch backhand volley winner. Serena wound up with a hold to make it 5-all, and three games later, the powerful American recorded a huge service break with a backhand winner for a 7-6 edge. In the next game, Serena set-up her first match point with a forehand winner and converted on it when Dementieva misfired wide with one final backhand after 2 hours, 49 minutes of spectacular tennis on the famed Centre Court. Serena launched 20 aces among her 45 winners, while Dementieva recorded 27 winners and had her serve broken five times. The two-time major runner-up from Russia settled for three breaks in the gut-wrenching setback. The 27-year-old Dementieva reached the French and U.S. Open finals in 2004 and won the gold medal in Beijing last year. She has lost in the Wimbledon semis the last two years, with last year's setback coming against the Wimbledon queen Venus. The 10-time major champion Serena will now appear in her 14th career Grand Slam final (10-3). She captured Wimbledon titles in 2002 and 2003 by beating her big sister in the finals and was the runner-up here in 2004 and last year. The 27-year-old Serena owns 33 career singles titles, including this year's Aussie Open crown. The mighty Williams sisters have combined for seven of the last nine Wimbledon titles. Venus is 5-2 in seven Wimbledon finals this decade.
<< Creamer withdraws from title defense
Sylvania, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Paula Creamer withdrew from her title defense at the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic before teeing off Thursday. Creamer injured her left thumb last week and had received treatment on the injury since wi
<< Some rebuild, USC reloads
<< Thrashers re-sign Thorburn
<< Angels return home to host Orioles
<< White Sox take win streak to Kansas City
Blackhawks sign Madden away from New Jersey >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Blackhawks have signed center John Madden to a one-year contract. Financial terms of the deal for the long-time New Jersey Devils defensive standout were not disclosed, but the Newark Star-Le
Flames sign Garth Murray >>
Shane Sellers returns tonight at Evangeline >>
Golf Tidbits: Should we believe Finchem? >>
Hossa's Cup quest leads him to Chicago >>
Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl Odds Will he or won't he? Now that the Dallas Cowboys have a new head coach in Wade Phillips, the big question will be: Does Terrell Owens stay with the team. Jerry Jones continues to suggest that Terrell Owens will remain with the team. "I've said that he's back, he's here, he's under contract," Jones said. "In the interviews I've just been through (to hire a new coach), it was very clear to me how highly he's thought of and how much of an impact he had on our offensive success." Just to be sure though, Terrell Owens cleared out his locker and removed his name plate. Terrell Owens was among the Cowboys most productive players this past season, catching 85 passes for 1,180 yards and a league-best 13 touchdowns. But T.O. is due a $3 million roster bonus in June, then a $5 million salary this season. Cutting him before then would save a lot of money and headaches. Aside from the questions surrounding Terrell Owens, the oddsmakers at MySportsbook.com have concerns over starting quarterback Tony Romo's state of mind and whether he will remain a starting quarterback. It is also not known how players will adjust to new head coach, Wade Phillips. Here are the football odds as seen at MySportsbook.com and subject to change after February 10, 2007 if not locked in prior to that date. To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your Sportsbook credit cards needs.
What Is the Point Spread?What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other. Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process). If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short). Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet. How to Read Point SpreadsNew England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7) In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:
To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds. |
|
