Safina, Kuznetsova will clash in all-Russian Rome finale

Tennis Betting Lines

05/08/2009 - Rome, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - For the second time in seven days, world No. 1 Dinara Safina and fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova will battle in a clay- court final.

On Friday in Rome, Safina came from behind to beat fourth-seeded American Venus Williams and a seventh-seeded Kuznetsova handled sixth-seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka in semifinal action at the $2 million Internazionali BNL d'Italia tennis event.

The Australian Open and French Open runner-up Safina outdueled the former world No. 1 Williams 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4 in an epic affair on the red clay at Foro Italico. The 2006 Rome runner-up Safina picked up her first-ever victory in three tries against Williams.

Safina needed a whopping 3 hours, 9 minutes to outlast Williams.

The reigning Wimbledon champion Williams titled here in 1999 and was the Rome runner-up in 1998.

The other semi saw the 2007 Rome runner-up Kuznetsova douse the 19-year-old Azarenka 6-2, 6-4. The steady Russian is now 4-1 all-time against the Miami champion Azarenka, who upset Kuznetsova in a semifinal in Miami earlier this season.

Safina is 7-5 lifetime against the St. Petersburg native Kuznetsova, who upset the Muscovite in last week's all-Russian title bout in Stuttgart. They've split a pair of matches here in Rome, with Safina claiming a semifinal victory in 2006 and Kuznetsova prevailing in a quarterfinal in 2007.

The 23-year-old Safina is 9-10 in her career finals, including a disappointing 0-3 record this year, while the 23-year-old world No. 8 Kuznetsova is 10-17 in her title tilts, including a 1-0 mark in 2009.

Saturday's winner will collect $350,000.

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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.