davis cup USA vs. Russia
 

A disclaimer: I'm a sports betting noob and I haven't put any money down yet.

There look to be 5 great matches though, and will probaly throw down some token bets just to make them more fun to watch (OLN is actually carrying the matches, which is awesome)

Matches are on indoor clay in Moscow, best prices are about +140/-160 with Russia as a heavy favorite.

R1 - A.RODDICK (USA) v M.SAFIN (RUS) (3-2 lifetime)

Safin is troublesome to bet either for or against, since he's such a wildcard. He could either totally work Roddick like Berdych did in canada, or self-destruct. Unfortunately for Roddick he doesn't have a very frustrating game to play against, decreasing the chances of that happening.

That said, the line is at +144 primarily because of Roddick's reknowned poor clay court performance of the last while IMO. Safin's isn't any better though, and we haven't had a chance to see the "new" roddick play on clay. That coupled with a kneeI think this match is going much closer to 50/50 than the moneyline suggests.

R2 - J.BLAKE (USA) v M.YOUZHNY (RUS)

Who knows what to make of this Youzhny guy. He worked Nadal but Blake's a very different player. Pinnacle has Blake as a moderate favorite at -124/+114, but I'd be picking blind.

R3 - B.BRYAN / M.BRYAN (USA) v D.TURSUNOV / M.YOUZHNY (RUS)

Lines for this individual match aren't up yet but I think that the overall match line (and hopefully the moneyline when it comes up) is blowing the youzhny defeat of the bryan brothers in the US open out of proportion. These guys bug the [censored] out of me, but they're the best doubles team in the world and love playing for their country, home crowd or not. Their only davis cup loss so far is to a turbo-charged ancic-ljubicic team (which was an awesome match to see btw).

R4 - A.RODDICK (USA) v M.YOUZHNY (RUS)

Roddick's can have some trouble against a guy like Youzhny who runs balls down and works the court, without a crowd to spur him on. But Roddick has proven himself able to both take Youzhny and <u>sometimes</u> come up with wins on clay against that type of player.

R5 - J.BLAKE (USA) v M.SAFIN (RUS) (1-2, safin won last 2)
Totally depends on which Safin shows up, it's on his racquet. Safin could possibly come large and have Blake outplay him, but the chance of all those stars aligning is slight.


It may seem odd that Davydenko is #5 in the world and sitting on the bench for this one, but he's got that ranking because he plays every friggin tournament sanctioned by the ITF. He's never beaten either Blake or Roddick.

I may have come off as a USA superfan, but with an almost guaranteed doubles win and 3 coinflips, I like the US +140 a lot.