French Open Betting / Gary Boswell / 22 May 2008 /

As the summer approaches, Gary Boswell turns his attentions away from Non-League football to women's tennis. In part one of his preview of the women's draw, he talks up the chances of last year's Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli

..in August 2007,football watcher The Boz advised Betfair punters to Lay the three favourites in the Premier Non-League Football Division - Oxford,Stevenage & Torquay. In September, after watching early games, he advised a back on mid-priced Aldershot to go with pre-season advices on Burton Albion and outsiders Forest Green and Farsley Celtic.

That constituted the portfolio approach to long distance betting for which The Boz is renowned. The portfolio collected 39.5 points profit at advised stakes.

In the summer, The Boz watches women's tennis....

...particularly The French Open at Roland Garros and Wimbledon fortnight although this year I will also be at the DFS Classic in my native Birmingham (I was actually born but a stone's throw from the courts) - a tasty appetiser for the Wimbledon fare.

My approach to tennis betting is pretty much the same as football betting. I play predominantly in outright markets and mainly those where I consider the favourites vulnerable. I have preferred Wimbledon to the French Open in recent years simply because a certain Ms Henin has dominated the French. Her sudden retirement and the injuries in Italy to Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova throw this year's Roland Garros wide open and The Boz is on the hunt for backable outsiders!

Most successful portfolio betting is based around the concept of laying the favourite or favourites.All of the above had been on my Lay list for 2008 and the only favourite I am keen not to Lay is Jelena Jankovic. The 23 year old was semi finalist last year and comes in on the back of a comfortable win in the final of the Italian Open.

If there's a winner amongst the big guns, then it's her but like all punters, I 'm always on the lookout for the realistic outsider. Not necessarily the outright winner - but an outsider that can be supported in the outrights to win a few games with the possibility of laying back later at radically shorter prices

Close player tracking works in football where you get to know which individuals have the ability to influence a team game. Goalkeepers,Centre-Halfs and Centre-forwards was Brian Clough and Peter Taylor's recipe for successful football team selection. I approach long term betting on football that way adding the managers themselves to the equation. Sides that have strong ticks in those four boxes win leagues. Year in, year out.

In tennis, player tracking is even more poignant. An individual sport and the only actual 'team' aspect is in the relationship with manager and coach. I get to know this in the player I'm tracking aswell as every other aspect possible, relevant or irrelevant.

It all goes in the file.

Marion Bartoli is number one on my outsiders list for this year's French Open. Her price is an unbelievable [126.0] in places and although not yet that on the Betfair exchanges, it and bigger can be posted with realistic expectation of finding a match.

She suffered a recurrence of a wrist injury in the prep tournament at Strasbourg this week and can now be expected to drift out even further but I'm still keen to back at big prices wherever Marion plays.

She has a reputation for carrying too much weight on to the tennis court and is often perceived as a 'non-athlete' which was why, until Wimbledon last year, she was always available at big prices.

Like many women's tennis players, she blows hot and cold and getting to know when the hot gusts are likely to happen is the trick.There are those that doubt her ability on clay but I have her very much in the Seles mould and I learned during Wimbledon that a penchant for her mother's apple pies was a contributing factor to her weight issue but unlike many, I considered the physique aspect likely to be less of a hindrance at Wimbledon where her hard-hitting, Seles style of play was going to be suited to the fastness of the dry grass court.

By the semi-final stage, she was hitting the ball like an exocet. It was whistling in the air and I saw it hit a ball-girl on the thigh.The tone of the screech the victim uttered was part of my ammunition for starting to believe that the rank outsider was about to undo the No.1 seed. I had considered Henin a vulnerable outright favourite before the tournament began a/ because of her record on grass and b/ because of an observed over the years chink in her mental constitution that makes her susceptible to wilting in certain match situations.

Of course you still have to get her beat and up to the semi-final it was looking unlikely as Henin breezed through every round showing why she was world No.1.

But I'd seen Bartoli batter her way past the distinctly classier Jankovic in the quarters with as dogged a display of determined not to get beat mentality as you could wish for. The 'apple pie' issue had been a factor in that game as rallies often ended with Bartoli puffing and blowing like a steam train whilst lithe Jankovic hardly broke sweat. And yet still Bartoli was winning the points.

Henin got a similar dose in the second and third sets of the semi as Bartoli hit it harder than ever (clocked at 129 on some random hand-helds in the crowd) and you suddenly smelled the Henin fear.Before you could blink, Bartoli had steam rollered her way into the final in one of the biggest Grand Slam upsets of the modern era (until Tsonga went to Oz that is).

Despite the indifferent form with no tournament wins on the circuit since, Bartoli has retained her 9th in the world ranking and showed signs to me of a return to form in her thrilling three setter with Patty Schnyder in the recent Tier One Italian Open event. There is a suspicion, rather like certain racehorses, that Bartoli is a time of year player and that she has prepared and trained with the idea of peaking over the next six weeks to take in the French Open and Wimbledon.

Her fourth round scores in last Year's Roland Garros (and the US) prove to me her class on the surface and her ability to handle the level of opposition and I think she is massively underestimated at a three figure price. The injury obviously won't help now and she may not even be a starter at the Garros (but she's in the draw!) and the likeness to Seles suggests to me that it is possible that Marion will adapt to the clay court surface and achieve her peak thereon.The Wimbledon 2007 form may yet be bettered. The fact that others doubt it is all to the benefit of the price!

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