Tennis Weekly Recap (Monte Carlo)

I mentioned at one point last week that the ATP Masters Event at Monte Carlo seemed to lack the feel of one of the bigger events on the calender, feeling more like an ATP 250 tournament than anything else. I truly believe the tournament loses a lot of credibility with it being the only Masters Event which is not compulsory.


Rafael Nadal still the one to beat on a clay court: Rafael Nadal won his 8th consecutive title at Monte Carlo and I think this one will be the most important for a couple of reasons.


The first is the fact that he beat Novak Djokovic in the Final, something he had failed to do since before the 2011 season. That will have finally given the Spaniard some confidence back after losing so many important matches to Djokovic over the last 15 months and will put him in good stead for the rest of the clay court season.


The second reason is the fact that he should now have the confidence in the knee issues that had forced his early retirement at the Masters Event in Miami, an injury Nadal admitted was still concerning him ahead of this one in Monte Carlo. It is clear he is much happier with the state of his body as he gets back on a clay court as it is much less demanding on his knees, and it is no surprise that he is going back to Barcelona in the coming week.




Ivan Ljubicic's retirement: Ivan Ljubicic became another big name tennis player from the last ten years that has called time on his career just a few short weeks after Fernando Gonzalez did the same in Miami.

Ivan Ljubicic was an under-rated player in his time, although his lack of success at Grand Slam level will likely have disappointed him.


Ljubicic did reach a high of World Number 3 in his career, a real achievement on its own, and that year coincided with his best efforts in a Grand Slam tournament as he reached the Quarter Final in Australian and the Semi Final at the French Open, but failure to reach further than the Fourth Round in any other Grand Slam tournament is a surprise considering his all around game.


The Croatian was highly respected by the other players on the Tour and he seems to be well-liked so I only hope he enjoys his post-playing career.




On another note, it was a tough week to be picking the matches considering the lack of consistency in the performances as a lot of the players were playing their first clay court tournament of the season.


Weekly Update: 4-4, + 2.44 Units (13 Units Staked)


Outright Update: 0-1, - 2 Units (2 Units Staked)


Season 2012 Update: + 29.79 Units (313 Units Staked, 9.51% Yield)
Season 2011: + 82.02 Units

Tennis Weekly Recap (February 26-March 4)

It was a good week for the picks after a couple of largely disappointing ones and that has pushed the profit back up to the where it was before those two weeks of losses.

It was a nice way to get up and running again after what seemed like a couple of tough weeks when things could have been so different with a little bit of luck. Now we get to have a few days off before the tournament at Indian Wells is due to commence.

The Main Draw for both the Men's and Women's tournaments are due out on Tuesday evening for the first big events outside of the Grand Slams. It also means the likes of Victoria Azarenka, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams (in Miami at least as the Williams sisters do not go to Indian Wells after suffering racial taunts there earlier in their careers) will all be returning to action after having a recent break.

One player who will be coming into the events in North America with a huge amount of confidence has to be Roger Federer who has won back to back ATP 500 Events and will surely feel he can get a little closer to the top two players in the Men's game. Another in line for a big month is Andy Murray who looked good in Dubai and has little to defend here from last season when he had a poor reaction to his Australian Open Final defeat to Novak Djokovic.

David Ferrer will also be a tough test for anyone following back to back to wins at the clay court events in Argentina and Mexico as the Spaniard continues to punch above his weight. Ferrer remains a truly solid role model for what hard work can get you as he has got the best, and perhaps more, out of the talent he was blessed with.

Weekly Recap: 11-6, + 9.6 Units (34 Units Staked)


Season 2012: + 23.65 Units (218 Units Staked, + 10.84% Yield)
Season 2011: + 82.02 Units

Tennis Weekly Recap (February 13-19)

It was not a great week as I seemed to put in a lot of effort, but have not had the rewards as I finished virtually where I started except there was a lot of tennis played in that time.

I am a little disappointed I didn't stick with my Milos Raonic pick from the tournament in San Jose as he did reach the Final there with a minimum of fuss and it seems the leg injury that kept him out of the Davis Cup was not as serious as initially feared.

Tomas Berdych cruised through to the Semi Final of the tournament in Rotterdam before he ran into a hot Juan Martin Del Potro, although the Argentine was a little outclassed by Roger Federer who picked up his first title win in 2012.

Federer was not in great form this week, but he saved his best performance on the week for the Final and will head to Dubai in two weeks time with a lot of confidence. That tournament will not be easy for him as the likes of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray will be joining other top stars in the desert.

Nicolas Almagro at least brought in some good news with his win in Sao Paulo on what was an otherwise disappointing week.


Weekly Picks: 11-13, - 4.46 Units (50 Units Staked)


Outright Picks: 1-1, + 2.33 Units (2 Units Staked)


Overall Feb 13-19 Update: 12-14, - 2.13 Units (52 Units Staked)


Season 2012: + 18.75 Units (139 Units Staked, + 13.49% yield)

Weekly and Overall Update from the Tennis Picks July 4th-10th

Sometimes it seems that if it wasn't for bad luck, I would have no luck at all... It was one of those days yesterday and I will not be making any more picks this week.

Richard Gasquet was the biggest culprit in my mind as he had a break advantage in all 5 sets played against Florian Mayer yesterday but blew the first 2 sets by losing 4 games in a row in both sets.

This meant that he ended up failing to cover the spread by 0.5 games, and was thus the subject of my rant for his disappointing attitude in the afternoon. In fact, he was fortunate that Mayer was clearly struggling with an injury, even if Gasquet failed to make that count for much of the latter stages of the match.

That bad luck seemed to run throughout the day as Phillip Kohlschreiber went down in straight sets to Gael Monfils when I expected the German to at least take a set. It did not improve my mood to notice Kohlschreiber actually had won more points than Monfils at the end of the 2nd set, but was still 2-0 down and clearly mentally deflated.

Potito Starace at least did me the good turn of winning his Davis Cup tie by covering the spread by 0.5 games before Mardy Fish lost out to Feliciano Lopez.


You cant make winning picks every week, and sometimes you have to know when to let go of a bad thing. There is plenty of time to recover in a tennis season, so I will be back for outright picks from Bastad and Stuttgart tomorrow.


WEEKLY UPDATE: - 6.09 Units (- 5.09 Units Daily Picks, - 1 Unit Outright Picks)


OVERALL TENNIS PROFIT/LOSS: + 48.51 Units