Murray cruises into third round in New York

Tennis Betting Lines

09/03/2010 - Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fourth-seeded Andy Murray was an easy straight-set winner on Friday in second round action at the 2010 U.S. Open.

Murray needed under 1 1/2 hours to dispatch Jamaican Dustin Brown 7-5, 6-3, 6-0, including just an 18-minute third set. The Scot fired 12 aces and 32 winners, winning 90 percent of the points on his first serve.

Arguably the best player in the world without a major championship, Murray -- a two-time major runner-up, including at the 2008 U.S. Open -- will next face 25th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka.

Murray is no stranger to the capable Wawrinka, who beat Juan Ignacio Chela 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 to reach the third round. The two have faced off eight times, with Murray capturing five, including a win in the fourth round of the 2008 U.S. Open.

Also advancing easily were a pair of top-10 Spaniards -- eighth-seeded Fernando Verdasco and 10th-seeded David Ferrer.

Verdasco had no problems in a 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 victory over France's Adrian Mannarino, while Ferrer got past German Benjamin Becker 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Verdasco will next face either 31st-seeded David Nalbandian or Florent Serra, while Ferrer will take on Daniel Gimeno-Traver.

Gimeno-Traver was a 4-6, 6-2, 6-0, 7-6 (7-2) winner over Jeremy Chardy.

Other seeded winners included 12th-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny, who beat Dudi Sela 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 and 18th-seeded American John Isner, who topped Marco Chiudinelli 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-4. Additionally, 23rd-seeded Feliciano Lopez defeated Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 5-7, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2.

Fresh off his title at New Haven last week, Sergiy Stakhovsky reached the third round here for the first time with a 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) win over American Ryan Harrison.

Spain's Tommy Robredo beat France's Julien Benneteau after the latter retired toward the end of the second set, and Frenchman Michael Llodra was a straight- set winner over Victor Hanescu.

The night session features top-seeded Rafael Nadal, who faces off against Denis Istomin. Nadal is in search of the career Grand Slam if he can win here at Flushing Meadows, and it would be his third consecutive major tournament win.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.