Sport is made for betting

And they're off at Roland Garros. Here are my previews from PuntingAce Scott Ferguson's French Open Previews Good luck!

Like any Aussie, I'll be cheering loudly today for Samantha Stosur in the women's final. The fact I have a 50/1 ticket on her from several weeks ago is almost irrelevant :D In addition to my Punting Ace preview, I've also done some writing for Betfair Australia. Here's the final piece (byline at the very bottom).

Bloody hell, I go out for the day for my wedding anniversary and come back to find Nadal has been beaten! With him and Djokovic out, that really opens it up. Federer's quarter of the draw is quite straightforward, but I don't think that entitles him to be 2.26 to win the title. Fernando Gonzalez should not be double Andy Murray's price, he's a much better player on clay than any of his opponents so far, and their h2h is split 1-1, albeit a while back.

Two more bets today. Women 0.5pt Larcher de Brito 3.5 to beat Rezai Price just too big here, impressive win over Zheng last round while Rezai was lucky to get past Hercog on Wednesday. Men 1pt Soderling 2.75 to beat Ferrer The Swede was flying last week, and while not as damaging this week, he hasn't dropped a set. Ferrer was lucky to get past Kiefer and is starting to get found out by the rest of the tour.

Fighting back after an awful day - Kiefer went close, managed to trade out for a nice position, but it still didn't cover the rest. The scoreboard says 0-5. Women 1pt Cirstea to beat Cornet 2.6 This is a play against the French headcase mostly - her R1 match had 16 breaks in 22 games, that's woeful. Cirstea is good enough, although her form hasn't been brilliant. 2pts Wickmayer to beat Stosur 2.2 Have been following the Belgian for several wks now and profitably too. On a great run and with stronger clay experience than the Aussie. 1pt Kutuzova to beat Martinez Sanchez 2.75 Another I've had some wins on this year, solid player well suited against the flair of the Spaniard and has a strong 10-4 record against lefties. 1pt M.Gonzalez to beat Seppi 3.0 Good R1 win over Fish, backing up last wk's form, while Seppi won less than 1/3 of his 2nd serves in R1, a licence to tee off. UPDATE Better results today, 2-2, +0.6. Kutuzova blew a one-set lead unfortunately.

Like a few tomorrow, here goes: Hradecka to beat Suarez Navarro 3.1 The Czech has almost halved her ranking this year and is underrated. The Spaniard has a lot of hype about her since her performance in Melbourne, and while she deserves to be favourite, she shouldn't be this short. Hradecka belted her R1 opponent, she's running hot after reaching the final in Strasbourg last week. Rus to beat Shvedova 2.8 The Dutch teenager is maturing well and starting to make her mark against the older women. Like Shvedova, she has won through qualifying. The gap between them in ranking isn't that much and winning 14 of her last 18 has her in a nice rhythm. Hercog to beat Rezai 2.8 Really like this Slovenian teenager, 25-3 this year on clay, beat Kleybanova R1. Rezai hits the ball really hard, but with blustery conditions forecast, she might find it harder than normal. Lay Ferrer vs Kiefer at 1.15 The Spaniard is starting get found out on the tour, he is limited but does what he got very,...

I'm not contracted for any match previews this fortnight, apart from my outright one which can be found on Punting Ace, so here are my bets for Tuesday. 1pt Benneteau (v Tsonga) 3.0 Benneteau leads the h2h 3-1 and made the final last wk in Kitzbuhel. Tsonga rarely plays on clay, although he did manage to beat two infrequent clay players last week in Dusseldorf. When two players from the same country play, I'd rather be on the outsider too. 1pt Voskoboeva (v Mirza) 1.95 Voskoboeva beat K.Bondarenko last week in Warsaw, reached the quarters. Mirza is terrible on clay and is rarely fit. Has the talent when all the planets are in alignment though. 0.5pt Reynolds (v Monfils) 6 Just taking a punt on the unhealthy state of Monfils. He has chronic knee problems, and looked terrible last wk losing to Baghdatis.

Poor performance from Wawrinka against an ordinary Frenchman. Didn't appear injured in the limited coverage I saw. Not much done at 1.01 but plenty close to that. Five sets on clay takes a long time. The match isn't over yet, if Stan comes back, Devilder has been matched at 1.07 and below for £130k.

It has been a crazy week here so apologies for the lack of updates - it won't happen again :) This week I've been busy. NRL previews French Open title previews here Monaco F1 preview IPL finals preview

All hell has broken out this morning on French Open tennis markets - rumours emanating from Belgium suggest Justine Henin is about to announce her immediate retirement from the game. The tournament becomes wide open if this is true - several of the big names (Sharapova, Serena, Venus) struggle on clay, Kuznetsova can't win a final these days if her life depended on it and the new breed of Ivanovic and Jankovic still haven't made that step up.....