After Andy Murray’s historic late night slog under the roof and lights of Wimbledon’s centre court, finally this championship has come alive. Many will wonder just how much effort was sapped from Murray as he battled to beat Stanislas Wawrinka (2-6 6-3 6-3 5-7 6-3). Now, Murray faces Juan Carlos Ferrero, in Wimbledon’s Quarter Final as he aims to be the first British champion in over 70 years.
England’s Under 21’s take another big step tomorrow (Friday the 26th June 09) in achieving European Championship success. England U-21’s face the host nation Sweden in this crucial semi-final and must be confident of disposing the host nation and facing either Italy or Germany in the final. Having caught some of the matches I have to say I’m mightily impressed by the way Stuart Pearce has this young, talanted side playing football. And with Pearce proclaiming, ‘There’s better to come…’ from his team, you begin to wonder , from a football betting prospective, just how good this England U21 team is?
Is it possible, can Andy Murray possible win Wimbledon 2009? If you were to believe the TV advertisements that are currently running on UK TV just now, then the short answer is yes! Hype is a great tool and the ad people are on full swing at the moment promoting Andy Murray as the next British Wimbledon champion in waiting. If you think the coverage of Murray on UK media is bad at the moment, wait until he progresses deeper into the tournament. Then the real pressure will kick in, just ask poor Tim Henman how that feels.
According to some, England have a decent chance of regaining The Ashes this summer from Australia. And in all honesty, English cricket needs an Ashes win, badly. Australian cricket, is somewhat going through a transitional period at the moment and it’s anything but smooth. Crashing out of the Twenty20 at the group stages was somewhat embarrassing to Australia, although the capitulation of their crown as the World’s most feared cricketing nation to South Africa and even India, is probably more hurtful than any Twenty20 loss.
Today sees the start of the 5 day meet at Royal Ascot with some cracking races, as usual, ready to be enjoyed by punters up and down the country, including Her Majesty, of course. However, it is day three, that we at the Free Bets Blog are concerned with and that oldest of Royal Ascot races, ‘The Gold Cup’.
The ICC Twenty20 World Cup is certainly hotting up. Today sees the start of the Super Eight group stages with England taking on South Africa at Trent Bridge. Also in play today is New Zealand v Ireland in the second group of the Super Eights in what possibly could prove to be a 3rd or 4th place group play-off. This latest ICC Twenty20 World Cup has been a spectators joy with Sri-Lanka showing some smart batting play.
Finally, we have new housemates to play with this summer. Big Brother 10 kicked off last Thursday night, when we were introduced to the latest specimens that will be filling our TV and newspaper space over the hopefully up-and-coming balmy summer days and nights. It’s make or break for BB10, with rumours rife that the show may be axed if this year’s current crop of housemates fail to hit the target with the viewing public.
This Saturday (6th of June 2009) sees one of the World’s most prestigious, flat thoroughbred races take place. You might know it better as ‘The Derby‘. Much of Britain has been basking in an early June heatwave this last week but forecasters are predicting that Epsom might be under a few heavy rain clouds in the lead-up to Saturday’s big race. This talk of wet weather has seen Brian Meehan think long and hard before finally agreeing to include ‘Crowded House’.
Sometimes in sport you have to grind out victories and none more can be true of the British and Irish Lions first game of the South Aftrica tour where a 37 – 25 victory against Royal XV in Phokeng. With just 15 minutes left to play and Royal XV leading by 25 points to 13, the British and Irish lions finally found their bite and ran in 3 tries in the closing minutes.
