Olympics 2012 Tennis - Outright

[monkeytennis]

The recent Wimbledon is obviously the strongest form on offer for betting on the Olympics Tennis tournament and I see no reason why the form shouldn't stand up. We are obviously not guaranteed an exact replica of results but I think it will be close and at this stage in proceedings I am very interested in Federer at 11/4 with Bet365 and Serena Williams at 7/4 with Bet365. The double pays almost 10/1 at the moment.

Any strong thoughts on this one?

[cantino]

Apparently Nadal has pulled out of the Olympics. Should make things interesting.

[TeddyT]

I think we could be in for a bit of a shock here, especially in the Men's event.

Tennis has been involved again in the Olympics since 1984 and in that time five unseeded players have made the Men's final, including 1992 winner Marc Rosset. Compare that to the Women's event in that same time span and not once has a player seeded higher than ten made the final.

With just three sets for the men all the way to the final this makes upsets distinctly possible and some big outsiders could have a good run - perfect for trading. With much of the field and the draw still to be decided it could be worth hanging fire before playing here but I will be looking for some big prices to go well.

In the meantime, I have backed number 6 seed Tomas Berdych at 50 as despite his first round defeat at Wimbledon this year he has made three ATP finals on grass including losing out to Nadal after beating Djokovic in 2010 and he looks likely to play better than his odds suggest.

As stated above major shocks look less likely in the Women's event but I really like the chance of 33/1 shot Sabine Lisicki. Her recent record on grass is excellent and judging by her Twitter posts she is really excited about the prospect of representing her country in the Olympics and is fired up to play well.
I'm not sure the top seeds will be as motivated, esp Williams and Sharapova, who have only played once before at the Olympics between them when Serena made the QF in 2008. Both have had hard seasons and may see focusing on the US Open as more important.

So Berdych and Lisicki for me with a couple more to be added once we know the draw.

[TimBing]

I think that Serena Williams will be highly motivated for an Olympics Gold medal.

If she wins the singles, she will become the first player to win all four slams, plus singles and doubles gold.

She will also be 34 when the next Olympics come around, so this is realistically her final chance of that elusive singles gold medal.