Rafa Nadal: This fierce Spaniard faced Andy Murray, beating him in straight sets. Nadal’s resistance and agressiveness is well-known, so it’s not much of a surprise. But Nadal himself thinks that match has been the best performance he’s had at Wimbledon.

Roger Federer: Of course! The Wimbledon Champion is looking for another title.  He played Mario Ancic, a croatian tennis player who crushed Federer in 2002. This time, Roger didn’t underestimate Super Mario, and walked out with a victory (6-1, 7-5, 6-4)! Now he has jumped into semifinals and has good chances to be the winner again.

Marat Safin has been a good surprise for these upcoming Wimbledon semifinals. Many thought he wasn’t going to make it through the first rounds, and now he’s placed with the other 3 best players. The weird thing is that he doesn’t seem to have a very positive attitude about it. He said that the fact that he’s on semifinals doesn’t mean he has a chance. Well, if he doesn’t have the confidence, I don’t think any Wimbledon betting fans will.

The weirdest thing was the opponent that beat Sharapova: Alla Kudryavtseva, a fellow Russian tennis player, barely known and seeded 151st. What happened? How did someone that had so much expectations upon her could just get kicked out a Grand Slam event? That will definitely change the things we thought were obvious when looking at the Wimbledon odds.

But what actually made me upset was Sharapova’s reaction about all this: “it wasn’t my day”. That’s what she said. What do you mean you think it wasn’t your day? It’s Wimbledon, for crying out loud! Great tennis players don’t screw up because they just have “bad days” at Grand Slam tournaments. I’m sure Andy Roddick used that excuse too. Anybody that claims having a bad, unlucky day will expect less people judging their performance and skills.

Kudryavtseva is now getting the world’s attention for being the tennis player that crushed Maria Sharapova in straight sets (2-6, 4-6) and she will be followed by everyone during every one of the Wimbledon games she has left. Will she be good enough to win the third round too? We’ll see… her opponents will only get tougher, and more experienced for sure.

Williams showed a lot of energy and a great performance, defeating British player Naomi Cavaday 7-6 (5), 6-1. Although Cavaday didn’t seem like a big opponent (she’s ranked 197^th), a tiebreaker was needed, and that’s where Venus Williams was better. It was weird to see Williams so tied-up by a low-profile player, which could concern some tennis betting fans… but in the end she was the winner and that’s what matters, at least for the moment. She’s now going to the Wimbledon second round, very excited and emotional about it.

There’s still more action left to crown any Champions. However, Venus started the Wimbledon tennis tournament with the right foot, no doubt about that. Follow her closely: that’s where your money could be.

The Wimbledon draft has been made and a lot of interesting things came up for many tennis players. Andy Murray is back in the game (after missing last year’s Wimbledon due to an injury) and will open the  tennis tournament against Fabrice Santoro. Quite a veteran! But at least  he managed to avoid other big figures like Andy Roddick.

Roger Federer, winner of the last 5 Wimbledon tournaments, will have a hard time as a defending Champion. He will have to defeat stars like Novak Djokovic, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Marat Safin. Tough luck!

On the girls’ side, top seed Ana Ivanovic will have a good start and not much to worry about. She won’t have to deal with players like Maria Sharapova until the competition has advanced.

So, that’s how things are. Many options to consider, top-class tennis players and the possibility of winning BIG. Who would turn down a combination like that?

It seems the Celtics parade will take place on Thursday, and Boston will be all-party. After so many years, the Celtics pride is up again! Beating the Lakers wasn’t an easy job, but it was worth the suffering, especially with the smashing 131-92 NBA score they got for Game 6. Not a bad way to restore the victory over the old rivals.

This Boston Celtics parade will also include the place of honor for Paul Pierce, named NBA Finals MVP. Of course, star Kevin Garnett will be there too and get his part of the fuzz. This was all said and done since day 1: the best decision for this 2008 NBA Season was to get Garnett and Pierce .. and make the best triplet with them and Ray Allen. These guys took Boston to the top! A winning formula that not even Kobe Bryant can defeat.

Well, too bad to say, but this means NBA will be over for a good while. It was fun while it lasted. Now it’s time to get ready for the NBA draft and, of course, the 2008 NFL Season that will begin in August!

The L.A. Lakers certainly didn’t expect that kind of comeback in Game 4 after what happened in Game 3, where Kobe and his team got some hope with a victory. Not only the Celtics won Game 4, but also did it with a glorious strike after being down for 20 points during a good part of the game. And we thought the Lakers were the experts at coming back from the bottom!

But when the Celtics seemed to be just one step away from final victory, they let it go again… at home!  The global score is 3-2 now, and tonight we’ll see if Game 7 will be necessary.

Will that be some kind of stunt to make more money by having to play more NBA games? Probably. But I’m starting to get worried about the money I thought I would have by now! What’s the matter with the Celtics? Tonight is decisive: if they don’t take the trophy as the NBA Champions 2008, anything could happen on Game 7. Anything.

For starters, it will be easy to follow the event with Prime Time coverage on ESPN and NBC. According to the US Open TV schedule, the action will be on air this Thursday since 1pm ET, and extending even to 10pm on the first rounds.

But the most important reason for you to stay tuned will be the tight competition at the golf tournament with several stars that assure this will be their year. Phil Mickelson is one of the big contenders, and others could give a huge surprise like Jim Furyk. Don’t underestimate this guy, even though he seems to be a plain dog in the US Open betting lines! His record is actually good enough to expect a good performance.

Of course, those players (and all the rest) will be somehow outshined by the return of top golf player Tiger Woods, who’s been out of the golf course since April, due to a knee surgery. Everybody is over Woods to see how he does at Torrey Pines, and basically waiting for him to be a reason for scandal and news coverage. The U.S. Open is just about to start and they’re already nagging him over nothing! Just a simple comment made by him about Phil Mickelson (where Tiger did nothing but say good things about him) seemed to pull the trigger and have everybody saying his remarks were racist and he wouldn’t have spoken like that if Mickelson were African-American. Seriously! Is it me or Golf people need a life? They really dig too deep and try to find controversy and outrageous scandals on any little, meaningless thing.

Anyway, the forecast looks really interesting for golf betting fans, and the ones that haven’t showed much interest in it, maybe should give it a try. Get ready to tee off!!

According to the NBA schedule, Tuesday night will be the Lakers’ turn to start catching up at their own court. They have all the pressure upon them and even though they will be playing 3 games at home, they basically have to win this game. No doubt the NBA odds don’t favor the Lakers right now after 2 games ending in 98-88 and 108-102, and they will have to prove everybody wrong.

Sure, it’s not impossible at all to turn the results upside down. There’s still plenty of chance for the Lakers to turn the NBA Finals scores into a 4-2 or something like that. But the Celtics are strong and they have the lead now. Nothing’s set on stone yet, but if the NBA game 3 odds are right and Boston wins, it would almost be a good-bye for the Los Angeles team.

Will the underdog step up and defeat the smashing favorite? Let’s see if the Lakers can put up some fight at home.

Thursday night had more than baseball action on Fenway Park, when it suddenly turned into something that seemed an unexpected boxing match. During the second inning, we could watch Rays pitcher James Shields throw a low ball that hit Boston’s Coco Crisp on the hip. This seemed to be enough for Coco Crisp to drop the bat and run to beat the hell out of Shields. Crisp had to dodge a punch from James Shields and then everyone jumped in, some to try to stop it and others to throw a few punches themselves.

Here’s the video of the violent “boxball” incident.

The tension remained obvious, floating all over the place, and that became clear at the end of the fourth inning, when Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis had a fight of their own. This one seemed to be less violent, but it still was unpleasant to everyone watching the game.

Apparently this comes from the previous Red Sox-Rays game, where some “fouls” seemed to be on purpose and that lead to people upset, talking about the others. Really, is this a way to get some attention from the media? Are the MLB guys so sick of being outshined by Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant these days that they have to beat each other to be more interesting?

These definitely aren’t the best days for baseball betting players and fans.

Even if they didn’t imagine that before, Boston has reasons to fear the Lakers and their lethal comeback techniques during NBA Playoffs. The Celtics not only have the advantage of being the best team during this NBA Season, but will also have the relief to begin the NBA Finals at home. The NBA betting odds place the Celtics as favorites, even though the Lakers are a serious threat.

We can’t forget the fact that every time a team gets too confident, the L.A. Lakers take advantage of it, so nothing is said and done yet. The underdog could surprise us this time, since their agressive strategy has been working amazingly.

Tonight, the Boston Celtics will have to take advantage of their own court, and try to take this lead. The NBA Finals odds are not enought to guarantee an NBA Championship title. They will have to be careful every minute of this game if they don’t want to be crushed by the last-quarter Lakers train.