US Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 28 August 2007 /

Betfair tennis guru Sean Calvert on events on day one at the US Open

At last, after all the hype and prep tournaments are over, the final slam of the year has begun and what better way to start than by laying a few multiples, having a maximum bet of the day and lay of the day and settling down to watch the action.

Having layed big serving leftie, Chris Guccione, as part of a multiple, I thought I'd start the day's viewing with the Aussie's match against the potential rising young star of US tennis, Donald Young.

There was a bumper crowd out on Court 11 for this one on a sunny New York morning and as usual in Flushing, the crowd were more than a touch partisan. The normal questionable behaviour was in evidence...shouting at inappropriate moments, cheering errors etc and this is what makes the US Open what it is and this was all at 11 a.m. The umpire had to step in as early as the first set when a Guccione first serve found the net at a crucial moment to the delight of one spectator. Roll on the night matches.

This was the first time that I had seen Young in action and he looks a decent young player and took the big Aussie down comfortably, even after losing a first set breaker and ran through the next three sets by 6-3, 6-2 and 6-3 and my multiple lay was in.

Next up was an energy sapping four setter over on Louis Armstrong, with a rather rotund Marcos Baghdatis taking on Belorussian beast, Max Mirnyi and the Cypriot is surely the oldest-looking 22 year old in sports, other than possibly Arjen Robben. His apparent lack of fitness told in the end, as Mirnyi ran out the winner by coming back from 1-5 down in the fourth set breaker to take out the number 18 seed, who will doubtless need to indulge in a comfort feed to get over this loss.

Most bad tempered match of the day was always likely to be Kiefer v Spadea on Grandstand and so it transpired, as Vinny - having lost the first set - got a bad call, which set him off on a rant that got worse when he got another bad call to go a break down in the second. Cue lots of juice-bottle throwing from Spadea and boos for the umpire from the pro-Vinny crowd. I'm guessing there's no hawk-eye on Grandstand, then.

As usual, Kiefer was muttering away psychotically to himself down the other end and you would need a degree in German profanity to understand a lot of it. When Kiefer served for the second set at 5-4 and threw in three double faults he went strangely quiet, but by contrast you didn't need to be a great lip reader to understand Spadea's words when he was walloped 7-1 in the resulting breaker, before surrendering meekly in the third set.

This was Spadea's 15th US Open and having never made it past the 4th round, he is like an American version of Jeremy Bates - you knew he was half decent but you always hoped he would win matches rather than expecting him to.

Speaking of strops, it's not often you see laid back Finn, Jarko Nieminen, smash a racquet and hit the umpire in the kidneys with a service return, but then again he's never faced the walking service machine that is John Isner before.

The Finn simply couldn't break Isner and by the time he'd seen the thirtieth ace fly past him, he'd had enough and my second multiple lay came in as Isner took it 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4.

The televised night matches passed without incident, with the Williams sisters easing through to the second round and my maximum bet came in without incident too, as Gilles Simon needed just the two sets to defeat Alexander Waske, who retired in the third.

So, an interesting and profitable Day 1 and I'm looking forward to another 12 hours of grand slam entertainment on Day 2.

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