Clijsters, Venus roll into U.S. Open fourth round

Tennis Betting Lines

09/03/2010 - Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Defending champion Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams took easy third-round wins Friday at the U.S. Open.

The second-seeded Clijsters dropped the first three games of her match against 27th-seeded Czech Petra Kvitova, but wound up taking the final 12 to complete a 6-3, 6-0 victory at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The Belgian, who has won 17 straight matches at Flushing Meadows, will face Serbian Ana Ivanovic in the fourth round in a battle of former world No. 1s.

Ivanovic beat Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano 7-5, 6-0, to continue her resurgence. The former French Open champion had not reached the fourth round at the U.S. Open since 2007, bowing out in the first round last year, and had not advanced beyond the second round at any of the three prior Grand Slam events this season.

Clijsters has had more success at the U.S. Open than Ivanovic, winning the title in 2005 and 2009. She is aiming to become the first woman to successfully defend her U.S. Open crown since Williams in 2001.

Williams, the No. 3 seed, is looking to win her third Open title and took another step through the bracket with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Luxembourg's Mandy Minella.

Williams used powerful groundstrokes to dominate rallies, and though she committed 30 unforced errors, still took the win in a little more than an hour.

Williams' fourth-round opponent will be 16th-seeded Israeli Shahar Peer, who advanced with a 6-4, 6-4 decision over 19th-seeded Italian Flavia Pennetta.

Sixth-seeded French Open champ Italian Francesca Schiavone moved on with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over the Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko, the 29th seed. Schiavone will next face 20th-seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova after she handled Argentine Gisela Dulko 6-1, 6-2.

Earlier winners Friday included Samantha Stosur of Australia and Russia's Elena Dementieva.

The fifth-seeded Stosur thumped Italy's Sara Errani, 6-2, 6-3, while the 12th- seeded Dementieva was a 7-5, 6-2 winner over Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova. Stosur and Dementieva will meet in the fourth round.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

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