The sports spread betting blog

Nadal v Federer, Madrid Masters Final - 17/5/09

It took until the last of 2009’s three clay court Masters Series for it happen, but the two dominant tennis forces of recent times were ready to once again collide. Of course, as rivalries go, what Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer exudes in intensity, it lacks in equality. For this was a ‘rivalry’ with one protagonist clearly superior to his opponent: Nadal had won his last five matches against Federer, including a draining five setter in Australia which left Federer beaten, battered and quite literally in tears.

Their head-to-head record on clay made even more sobering reading for the Swiss: Federer had only once triumphed out of 11 meetings, and that was in Hamburg two years ago. Since then, Nadal had racked up four consecutive wins, including a 6-1 6-3 6-0 pulverisation in the 2008 French Open final. In short, Fed-ex’s prospects could barely have looked worse.

However, according to the bookmakers, the Swiss had a fighting chance. His 25:0 (which makes up 25 if he wins the match and 0 if he loses) was 6.5 – 8, which was a couple of points higher than I had expected it to be. Nadal, it must never be forgotten, is pretty much Superman on clay – his record since 2005 was a mind-boggling 150 wins and four defeats. Add to this the hoodoo he seemed to hold over Federer and there was just no way that I could see the Swiss winning this match. And so, despite a usual reluctance to pile into short prices, I CHOSE TO SELL FEDERER’S 25:0 AT 6.5.

DURING THE MATCH

The contest started off as expected, with Nadal looking his usual supreme self on the red stuff and Federer struggling a little, saving break points in both his second and third service games. Then, however, the tide slowly began to change, with Federer exerting his own pressure on the Nadal serve and the King of Clay, unusually, finding it hard to respond. Federer duly took the first set 6-4 and another factor came into play. For in the semi-finals, Nadal played one of the matches of the year against Novak Djokovic, saving three match points before winning a 3rd set tie-break 11-9 to clinch a memorable triumph in four hours and three minutes.

Now, less than 24 hours later, he was being asked to come back again from one set to love down, this time against an inspired Roger Federer. Now, normally the words ‘Nadal’ and ‘fatigue’ go together about as well as ‘Murray’ and ‘charming’ or ‘Kim Clijsters’ and ‘in shape’. On this occasion, however, Nadal worryingly looked absolutely knackered. Backhand passes that he’d normally rip cross-court were landing in the tramlines, second serves were being buried in the net.

Nadal was looking like a shadow of himself and playing like one as well. Federer, sensing blood, seized upon his fatigued opponent and broke again midway through the second set, before serving out the match for a 6-4 6-4 victory. A shock result in many ways and not a good outcome for my bet, although it did offer much needed confirmation that Nadal is not quite Superman. Yet.

JW

Review: 2009 Snooker World Championships - 13/5/09

This year’s World Snooker Championship seemed to be especially important for the long-term future of the sport. In the previous weeks, snooker has been engulfed with bad news: from betting scandals (the Maguire vs Burnett affair from December’s UK championship is still under police investigation) to outspoken criticism over the direction the sport was taking from the man who is arguably its only real star, Ronnie O’Sullivan. Furthermore there was speculation that the tournament was prepared to abandon its legendary home of the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield for some glitzy new venue in China or Dubai. All in all, the World Snooker Authority was in desperate need of the positive publicity that a successful tournament could garner.

From a bettor’s perspective, this was significant. A good tournament would surely feature close matches and, more importantly for us, high scoring. Crucially, the latter is something that can be influenced by the organisers. A little softening of the pockets here, a change of cloth there and the world’s most gifted snooker players would have the best possible opportunity to showcase their break-building talents. In the current climate, it was in nobody’s interest to have matches dominated by balls rattling in the jaws of unforgiving pockets, and dour safety play encouraged by the player’s reluctance to chance their arms with long pots.

In light of this, two quotes in particular caught my eye. Total tournament centuries were available to buy at 67 and tournament ton-ups (i.e. the total number of points scored over 100 in each century break) at 1080. Historically speaking, these quotes look on the high side – only twice in the last ten years had centuries made up higher than 67 and ton-ups had never done so. However, sometimes it can pay to not get bogged down in past results. The overall standard of snooker has been significantly improving for years now; the young players coming through all seem to be talented break-builders and the number of centuries scored was increasing: at the Masters in January, the world’s top 16 players – who would all be present in Sheffield – combined for 32 centuries in just 15 matches. Over the longer format of the World Championship, I anticipated a similarly strong performance and so BOUGHT TOTAL CENTURIES AND TOTAL TOURNAMENT TON-UPS.

On the outright market, I had a strong liking for Ali ‘The Captain’ Carter. Frequently acclaimed as one of the brightest young talents in the game, he had consistently reached the latter stages of tournaments during the 2008-9 season and had recently claimed his first ranking title. Having already reached the World Championship final the previous year, I fancied him to go deep again this year and so chose to BUY CARTER ON THE 4-PAY INDEX AT 18. This would make up 100 if he won the tournament, 50 if he reached the final and 25 for a semi-final, so I needed at least a last-four appearance from Carter to turn a profit in the match.

DURING THE TOURNAMENT

Well, I was certainly right on one count. The tournament was indeed a festival of scoring. In the very first session, Ronnie hit a 140 break and was 13 reds and blacks into a potential 147. The scoring barely let up from then on and it soon became clear that the previous record of 68 tournament centuries was going to be obliterated. Despite a slight let-up in the scoring as the tournament reached the tense semi-final stage, both of my tournament bets ended up as very decent winners: centuries made up 83 and ton-ups 1277. Unfortunately, my faith in Carter was somewhat misplaced as he crashed out of the tournament to the Aussie Neil Robertson in the 2nd round stage. Indeed, Carter was a let down all-round, as he contrived to exit the tournament early on without contributing a single century. Still, even his early exit couldn’t spoil what was an excellent tournament, both for my punting and, probably more significantly, for the ailing sport of snooker itself. It was announced halfway through that the World Championships will be returning to Sheffield for the next five years; I, for one, cannot wait.

JW

Preview: Arsenal v Man United, Champions League semi-final, second leg - 5/5/09

There are so many matches between the top four clubs in England these days. I remember a time when it was so rare that English clubs were drawn against each other in Europe that I wasn't even sure if it was allowed in the rules. It's different nowadays, and when Liverpool and Chelsea were put together yet again for this year's Champions League quarter-finals, you could almost hear the groan from every football fan in Europe.

This collective grumpiness would not just have been because of the repetition of games between these two, but also because the matches over the previous few years had been fairly dull. You could argue that the tension made the games exciting, but not many people genuinely enjoy watching matches that commentators are describing after ten minutes as a 'chess match'. I personally found it hard to believe that Chelsea under Mourinho banging the ball up to Drogba over and over again was really the all time pinnacle of football strategy.

One feature of these Liverpool v Chelsea ties was that goals always seemed to be very low - usually a dour, grinding 0-0 away draw from Liverpool followed by a tight win at Anfield on penalties or by one goal. Last season's ties finished 3-2 (after extra time) and 1-1, but still, the instinctive reaction on which way to trade on total goals would be to sell rather than buy. The problem is that bookmakers are aware of this as well, so total goals quotes for the first leg at Anfield were very low, with a typical quote being 1.95-2.15.

I had a look at average total goals make-ups in recent meetings between the sides, and found that in the last twenty-two Liverpool v Chelsea matches goals had averaged 1.82, and in the Champions League matches between them the average was just 1.25. So one could argue that a sell at 1.95 might still be an idea. I simply didn't fancy it though, although I can't claim that I was tempted to buy either. The first leg finished 1-3, which meant that the second leg would be far more open with Liverpool needing three goals to have a chance of going through. The total goals market was therefore very tricky, with lots of factors to take into account - very low historical average, an average of 3.66 in the last three matches between them, and a game which was likely to be very open.

The spread betting firms were still forced fairly low though, with most quotes being around 2.4-2.6 and 2.5-2.7. I still couldn't bring myself to have a buy, and was regretting this as one of the matches of the season finished in a 4-4 draw. There was a similar scenario for Liverpool v Arsenal recently. It sounded like low goals, especially with Adebayor and Van Persie out, but it finished 4-4 again.

It's now very difficult to know what total goals are going to be like in future matches between the big four. After these high goals make-ups we saw another tight affair last week as Manchester United beat Arsenal 1-0. It's tempting after some high goals make-ups to fall into the trap of thinking that all matches between the big four are going to be goalfests in future, and similarly if there's a couple of chess matches one might be tempted to sell for the next one. The correct answer is obviously somewhere in the middle, which is why it's not a surprise to see the spread betting firms putting out fairly neutral total goals quotes like 2.4-2.6 for the Champions League semi-final second leg between Arsenal and United.

AR