Sportsbet Blog

After a five month wait The Formula One season is set to begin all over again on Sunday with drivers today gearing up for their final qualifying sessions in Melbourne.

Two Seasons Of Intensely Close Competition

The last two seasons have produced the most thrilling conclusions in the history of the sport, and in both years it was Lewis Hamilton who was at the centre of the action.

In 2007 the young Brit went within one point of doing what is considered an impossible task – claim an F1 title in your rookie season. He was pipped at the post by his Finnish rival Kimi Raikkonen who was the epitome of Scandinavian composure, winning the last two races of the season to leapfrog the British rookie and claim the title by a single point.

2008 once again saw an incredibly close race, with the consistency of Hamilton’s performances seeing him needing just a top five finish in the final race to snare his maiden championship win.

Things could not have been more tense for the 23yr old, who rounded the final bend in sixth place but was able to capitalise on a poor choice of tyres by rival Timo Glock to clamber up into fifth position and claim the season title…by a single point.

Will 2009 Match The Epic Showdowns Of The Past Two Seasons

So expectations are obviously high for another close championship in 2009. This will be the final season under the current points scoring system where drivers are awarded points for finishing anywhere in the top 10. The new system will see the F1 title going to the driver with the most race wins, and the governing body had originally planned to run with the new format this year. It was met was such fierce opposition from drivers and teams that it has been pushed back until 2010, and will force a major rethink when it comes to strategy and teamwork.

But for now the title will in effect go to the most consistent driver, and Hamilton has shown that to be one of his strengths in his first two seasons at the top.

Performances in testing have been a little underwhelming for the Brit this year, but the good news is that so far none of his rivals have handed in any electrifying performances of their own.

In an interview yesterday Mark Webber commented on how level the competition seemed to be at this stage. “It is literally us, Toyota, Williams and BMW” Webber said. “We have all at certain times, done the business. And the Renault as well”.

Who will do the business this year?

In a bit of a surprise a resurgent Jenson Button has come back from obscurity to be installed as favourite to take the Australian Grand Prix at odds of 4/1. He is closely followed by Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen with last years champion well back in the betting at this stage.

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When talk of tennis turns to Rafael Nadal one of the things that immediately springs to mind is his dominance over the majority of his opponents and in particular Roger Federer. Watching him play it is hard to imagine that any player could dominate this Spanish superstar.

One player who has managed to gain an advantage over Nadal recently is the Argentinian David Nalbandian. In there previous two meetings he has beaten Nadal in straight sets, losing a combined total of just 7 games in those 2 matches – two more dominant displays against Nadal are hard to recall.

So when Nalbandian raced to a 6-3, 5-3 lead at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, the tennis world was beginning to wonder what voodoo magic was at work to give him an edge over this seemingly indestructible giant of the game.

Then came the fightback.

Despite being down five match points Nadal never lost his self belief. And knowing that he surely had their last two encounters in the back of his mind made this display all the more impressive.

He took the second set in a tiebreak, broke the will of his opponent and stormed home to take the final set without dropping a game.

It is this mental strength that sets Nadal apart from all his contemporaries – especially Federer. The Swiss maestro is perhaps one of the best frontrunners the game has ever see. Give him a sniff of victory and his confidence is displayed in his outrageous shot making ability.

But get him behind the eight-ball as we saw earlier this year in Melbourne and you can almost see the fear of defeat in his eyes as he pulls back on his shot making and steers the ball around the court praying for a mistake from a man who makes few.

And so this tournament is steering its natural course towards another clash between the world’s top ranked men. Other players such as Andy Murray and Juan Del Potro are staking their claims with some impressive tennis but the expectations are for a Nadal, Federer final.

With Federer having had a full month of rest, and Nadal doing it tough with a knee injury, perhaps this is a chance for Federer to regain some confidence ahead of the mid-season majors beginning with the French and followed soon after by Wimbledon.

The women’s side of the tournament has seen almost all the big names sent packing early with Ana Ivanovic and Vera Zvonereva the only two household names left in the tournament.

Most impressive have been the efforts of two players on the rise – 17 yr old Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkov and 19yr old Victoria Azarenka who defeated Dinara Safina, preventing her from joining her brother Marat in as a player who has sat atop the world rankings.

Both titles will be decided over the weekend and should make for some excellent viewing

Crooksy

I’ll start of by saying this – I’m a red-blooded Aussie bloke who loves his homegrown sports. I’ve watched cricket, tennis,  & rugby union live in many different parts of the world. I’m an NRL fan, love the swimming and will watch pretty much any sport where there is an Aussie involved in the action (except maybe hockey…I just can’t get into it)

But my favourite yearly sports tournament is the NCAA college basketball championships in the U.S, colloquially known as March Madness. Now obviously if you have no idea about basketball, or you can’t stand the sport, this tourney may not be your cup of tea.

But bear with me for a minute and I’ll explain what it is that makes this tournament so special.

The Passion Of College Sports

For a large percentage Americans college sports are far more popular than the professional version – and this is especially true for college football and basketball. For example there is a college football stadium in  Michigan known as The Big House, which has not had an attendance of less than 100,000 people since 1975. That just doesn’t happen for professional sports teams

Every Year Is Different

There are over 300 teams that play college basketball At Division 1 level. Each year these teams play their regular season games with the aim of qualifying for the end of season tournament which only takes 65 teams. This means that every year the main tournament is unique.

And with college basketball seeing such a high turnover of players, each year sees different teams as favourites, new teams qualifying and exciting young players emerging. It’s a refreshing change and adds greatly to the unpredictability of this tournament, one of the reasons it is so special

Watching The Emergence Of Superstars

Every year sees new young players emerge who will eventually go on to become superstars of the sport. It’s exciting to see this happen, and to watch these skillful youngsters before they have been tainted by the marketing and the money of professional sports.

Every Game Is Sudden Death

This is a knock-out tournament, so there is something riding on absolutely every game. For many of these teams, just making it to the tournament is a rare occurrence, and you can see how much it means to them as their team strives to progress as deep into the tournament as possible.

Some Of Sports Greatest Rivalries

Some of the rivalries in U.S college sports are hard to explain, stretching back many decades and fuelled by the intense loyalty that college sports creates. Probably the fiercest rivalry in college basketball is between Duke & North Carolina, two powerhouse basketball colleges who are less than 20km apart.

The atmosphere during their conference games is unbelievably intense and is one of the great spectacles of world sport.

The draw this year has set up a possible semi-final clash between these two colleges so keep an eye out for that as the tournament progresses

Speed Of The Game

The college version of the sport is quicker than in the Pro’s, without sacrificing much in terms of athletic ability. For  a non-basketball fan this can often be a more entertaining spectacle.

Aussies In Action?

Last year Australia were very well represented in the main tournament, but unfortunately this year most of the teams with the major Aussie representation did not do so well and just missed out on qualification.

There is one team playing the second tier NIT tournament, St. Mary’s, which fields around five Aussies – they have an assistant coach who’s Australian so he’s recruited heavily from Down Under. It’s worth checking ESPN to see if they have any games televised – their star player is Aussie excitement machine Patrick Mills, a possible NBA prospect later this year.

Betting on March madness is huge business and you can get involved through Centrebet, SportsBet, CanBet or Betfair.

ESPN will be televising many games from the tournament and they are well worth checking out. You may find yourself being draw in to March Madness more than you thought possible.

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Some big golf and tennis events are currently underway so today I’ll take a look at who’s in with the best chance.

Golf – WGC-CA Championships

After two rounds of the WGC event in Florida, Phil Mickelson has maintained his place at the top of the leader board, firing a six under par 66 to go with his 65 from the opening round. Nick Watney is two shots back, with Kenny Perry and young Irish prodigy Rory McIlory within striking distance at ten under the card.

In his second event back after an eight month lay-off, Tiger Woods has been steady shooting 71 & 70 to leave him 10 shots off the pace. He was happy with his play, citing his flatstick as the reason his scores weren’t lower.

While Mickelson has been playing well, I don’t think the score is a true indication of his performance. He has been wayward off the tee, hitting just 50% of fairways, which is not normally good enough to win you a big tournament like this one. His low score can be attributed to his scrambling play – he has chipped in four times in two days, and has had just 42 putts so far for the week, an average he surely can’t maintain.

If you’re looking for a bet on this tournament you might think about laying Mickelson with Betfair, there’s every chance he’ll blow out if he doesn’t get his tee to green play sorted. Players to watch for in the final two rounds  include McIlroy,  Columbian Camilo Villegas and Kenny Perry.

Tennis – BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells

The Men’s Draw

The BNP Paribas open has begun in Indian Wells, California and on the men’s side we have the world’s top four players back in the same tournament for the first time since The Australian Open.

Roger Federer is playing in his first event since that demoralizing defeat to Nadal in Melbourne, Murray has returned from a short break after withdrawing from the event in Dubai, and Nadal seems to be OK after testing his knee out in the Davis Cup tie against Serbia last week. He wiped the floor with world number three Novak Djokovic so things would appear to be fine for Nadal.

As would be expected Nadal has been installed as favourite, although there is not as much of a gap in the betting between him and Federer as I thought there would be. This could either mean that the bookies are offering too much on Nadal, ot too little on Federer.

I think it would be very hard to back Federer to win straight up after his lay-off, Murray’s health is still in question and Djokovic is yet to convince me that his form this year has reached the heights of ’08.

Which leaves the man from Majorca – Nadal

The Women’s Draw

The women’s tournament seems to be a much more open event. Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva and Jelena Jankovic are all around the same in the betting, with Safina prbably being installed as the slight favourite.

From this field, Dementieva and Safina are the players with the best big tournament form so far this year and with both Williams sisters missing from this tournament, they will see this as a fantastic opportunity to claim one of the more important WTA events on the calendar.

One outsider to consider is Victoria Azarenko who had an excellent tournament win in Tennessee last month where she dropped just four games in the final against Caroline Wozniacki.

Incidentally the two finalists teamed up to claim the doubles title at the same event, so it was a good week for the pair.

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