Roger Federer described his run of reaching 23 consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals as "one of his greatest achievements" while one client described the end to this amazing sequence as "fooking fantastic". That's what betting does to you. No matter what romance there may be, you side with where your money is, and rightly so. But I digress, as I want to tell you about the seriously ballsy sell of Fed over Robin Soderling (at 12.5 for £100) when the greatest player of all-time had taken the first set 6-3. But Soderling is made of some really fine stuff on the clay as his defeat of Nadal proved last year. He reversed the score in the second set, the pace then quickened but at 5-5 in the third the rain came down forcing both players back to those cramped Paris facilities. The players returned after an hour but Federer left his game in the locker room, letting a 40-15 lead slip which the Swede pounced on to move 2-1 up. The crowd chanted, no one likes to see Roger lose, but our man did and got his wish as Soderling was just too good for his opponent, winning 6-4 and ending a semi-final appearance record that is a staggering 12 times better than anyone else. -20 the make-up, yielding a £3,250 and nuff respect for the punter.

As cricket bathes in its rather limited sunlight before things kick off in Africa there was another massive ODI shock in Harare as Zimbabwe took on India. Just five days before, the Zimbos had clinched a shock six-wicket victory over India in the opening game of their Tri-Nations series. It couldn't happen again surely. One punter agreed and bought India / Zimbabwe at 48 for £25 just as the Indian opening pair got off to a solid start. But that's as good as it got for the visitors who could muster only 194, 91 runs less than they got five days ago! The price slipped down but the punter had gone in again, buying at 34 for another £25 and praying for a Finn-like bowling performance from the Dhoni-less visitors. Instead Hamilton Masakadza and Brendan Taylor put on 128 for the first wicket as a toothless Indian attack couldn't inject any spice into the game. Zimbabwe got to the target from only 38.2 overs, winning the game by a colossal seven wickets to total the market at -70 meaning the client had done £5,550.

World Cup One World Cup market that's sparked interest this week has been the number of Own Goals scored in the tournament. Initially our spread was 3.4-3.7 but perhaps the two OGs from Japan in their friendly against England has encouraged buyers as the price has moved up to 3.7-4. And with Japan guaranteed to play three times this could rise even higher.

F1 With Vettel and Webber blaming each other there may be some lingering Red Bull resentment for the rest of the season. Either way with McLaren taking first and second place Red Bull have seen their price drop on the Constructors Index from 42-45 to 39-42. McLaren are up to 35-38.


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