Safin sneaks out U.S. opener

Tennis Betting Lines

08/26/2008 - Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former champion Marat Safin was a hard-fought first-round winner Tuesday at the U.S. Open.

An unseeded Safin went the distance to get past veteran American Vincent Spadea 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 at Ashe Stadium on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

The former world No. 1 and two-time major titlist Safin captured the U.S. Open back in 2000. The big Russian will meet Spaniard Tommy Robredo in the second round.

A mild upset came when former Top-5 German star Tommy Haas erased 12th-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet in a splendid five-setter, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2. Haas reached the quarterfinals here in three of the previous four years.

In other action involving Top-16 seeds, No. 13 Spaniard Fernando Verdasco vaulted past Russian Igor Kunitsyn 6-3, 6-4, 6-1, a No. 15 Robredo rolled past German Mischa Zverev 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, 6-1 and 6-foot-10 No. 14 Croat Ivo Karlovic handled Czech Jan Minar 7-5, 6-1, 6-4.

American Sam Querrey posted an upset by dismantling 22nd-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-1, 6-2, while 31st-seeded Italian Andreas Seppi edged out Korean Hyung-Taik Lee 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 3-6, 6-3. Querrey closed out a listless Berdych with his 11th ace of the lopsided match.

Additional opening-round wins came for Finn Jarkko Nieminen, Spaniard Guillermo-Garcia Lopez, Luxembourg's Gilles Muller, Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy, Nicolas Devilder and Florent Serra, Korean Yen-Hsun Lu, and Italian lucky- loser Flavio Cipolla, who replaced 21st-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny in the draw and outlasted Czech Jan Hernych 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7-0), 7-6 (7-4).

The U.S. Open marks the fourth and final major of the year.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.