Djokovic, Murray land in Aussie quarters

Tennis Betting Lines

01/23/2012 - Melbourne, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Reigning champion Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, who lost in the last two finals in Melbourne, were a pair of fourth-round winners Monday at the Australian Open.

The world No. 1 Djokovic was tested in a 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Aussie hero and former top-ranked star Lleyton Hewitt in a match that ended just after 1:00 a.m. at Rod Laver Arena.

Djokovic moved on in just under three hours by smacking 15 aces among his 55 winners and he broke Hewitt eight times, compared to four breaks for the 30- year-old Aussie loser.

The 24-year-old Djokovic is now 5-1 lifetime against Hewitt. The Serb also topped the Aussie in the fourth round here in 2008 and is 3-1 all-time against Hewitt in Grand Slam action.

Hewitt is a two-time major champion and was the 2005 Aussie Open runner-up to retired Russian Marat Safin.

The reigning Aussie Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open titlist Djokovic has now won 36 of his last 38 Grand Slam matches and is seeking a third straight major title and a third Aussie crown. A title this week would put Djokovic in select company, as only four players -- Laver, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal -- have captured three straight Grand Slam championships in the Open era (since 1968).

Djokovic's quarterfinal opponent on Wednesday will be fifth-seeded Spanish star David Ferrer. The powerful Serb is 6-5 lifetime against Ferrer.

The hot Ferrer, who titled in Auckland two weeks ago, easily beat 17th-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 to reach his third Aussie Open quarterfinal.

The world No. 4 Murray, meanwhile, improved to 16-2 in Melbourne over the last three years with a comprehensive 6-1, 6-1, 1-0 victory over injured Mikhail Kukushkin, as the overmatched Kazakhstani retired from the match with a hip injury.

"It wasn't until I went up 3-0 (that) pretty quickly I realized, you know, he wasn't really moving," Murray said of Kukushkin.

"It's obviously good for me, I get to conserve some energy. Tough for him, first time in the fourth-round of a Slam," Murray added.

Murray, who titled in Brisbane three weeks ago, lost to Djokovic in last year's Aussie finale and was the runner-up to Federer here two years ago.

Up next for Murray will be 24th-seeded Kei Nishikori, who posted a big Day-8 upset by ousting sixth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to become the first Japanese man to reach the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam event since Shuzo Matsuoka in 1995 (Wimbledon).

Nishikori is also the first Japanese man in 80 years to advance to the Aussie Open quarters, since Ryosuki Nunoi and Jiro Satoh turned the trick way back in 1932.

"Is feeling unbelievable. My first quarterfinal and beating Tsonga, makes me really happy," Nishikori said. "I hope it's big in Japan. A lot of people messaged me a couple of days ago about the round of 16 and now the quarterfinals. It's really exciting."

Tsonga, who lost to Djokovic in the 2008 Aussie finale, piled up 70 unforced errors, compared to just 30 for the elated Nishikori.

The popular Tsonga was fresh off his season-opening title in Doha three weeks ago.

The men's quarterfinals will get underway Tuesday, as a second-seeded Nadal will take on seventh-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych in a rematch of the 2010 Wimbledon final and a third-seeded Federer will battle 11th-seeded Juan Martin del Potro in a rematch of the 2009 U.S. Open final. Nadal beat Berdych at Wimbledon two years ago, while del Potro stunned Federer in New York in '09.

The former No. 1 Nadal owns 10 major titles, including last year's French Open and the 2009 Aussie Open, as be beat his great rival Federer in the championship match in Melbourne three years ago. The former top-ranked great Federer is the holder of a men's record 16 major titles, including four Aussie Open crowns.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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