Its always overwhelming when you see a top ranked player (esp. #2) fall to an unseeded opponent, especially in straight sets. Reading these posts, it seems that alot of people saw the potential in Tsonga to cause a potential upset. On the contrary, there were others who felt Nadal would outwill and outgrind Tsonga.
As bettors, I think there are a few things we need to take away from this match. Firstly, we CANNOT underestimate the power and importance of a BIG SERVE. Its just so much easier to play the game, when you have that dominant serve. If you can hold your own serve with relative ease, it allows you to focus and expend more energy on breaking your opponents serve. Also on key points when you're down a break point or two, its a huge advantage if you can ace out of it or have the confidence to set up a 1-2 punch with a big serve. In this match (I think it was the third set) when Tsonga was down 15-40, BAM BAM-- game over!! Think about how demoralizing that must be to your opponent. Same thing happened to David Ferrer against Djokovic. Nole just kept coming up with big serves on key points. Ferrer on the other hand had to fight for every point! Look at players like Roddick- 23 titles.. Huge serve, less than mediocre game. Think about it... What would roddick be without his serve.
Second, and this is especially important if you bet relatively bigger than your bankroll permits, we CANNOT just bet on a match based on how it looks on PAPER. Those tennis fans who saw Tsonga play knew what he was capable of.. That he is not Cilic- This stage will probably not affect him.. He takes the crowd in and uses it to his advantage. We saw the fire power in him, the maturity, and the DESIRE to win.. On paper, ofcourse NADAL is the better player. And on clay (or maybe grass, though i doubt it), the result would have been drastically different. But Nadal hadn't impressed me at all going into this match.. Simon shouldve won the first set, but Nadal outwilled him rather than outplaying him.. Nieminen had his chances.. Mathieu was hurt.. How can we bet Nadal with THOSE BS ODDS with this information in hand? I know this is in hindsight, but I think those of us that did could've made better choices just by making sure we looked at every angle and WATCHED as much tennis from these two guys as possible. Nadal's matches were on TV, but I had to resort to ESPN 360 to watch the rest of the players.
Tomorrow is a HUGE match between Federer and Djokovic. I hope all of us can make sound, UNBIASED decisions, put our love for the players aside when we make our bets, and enjoy our profits.. Say NO to feeding Bookies!! GL ALL
