Nadal cruises in Wimbledon opener

Tennis Betting Lines

06/22/2010 - Wimbledon, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - World No. 1 and former champion Rafael Nadal was an easy opening-round winner Tuesday at Wimbledon.

The 2008 titlist Nadal blew past talented Japanese Kei Nishikori 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 on the famed Centre Court at the All England Club.

Nadal handled Nishikori in 2 hours, 5 minutes by breaking his Japanese counterpart five times in 14 tries. Nishikori settled for only one break in a losing effort.

Nishikori was sidelined from March of last year until March of this year due to a right elbow injury.

The 24-year-old Nadal has won his last eight matches here and is now 23-4 lifetime at Wimbledon. He's won 25 of his last 26 matches overall on tour.

Nadal is ranked No. 1 in the world but seeded second here behind reigning champ Roger Federer. The powerful Spaniard is playing here for the first time since beating Federer in a final for the ages two years ago. Nadal missed last year's edition of the world's most prestigious tennis tournament because of tendinitis in his knees.

The Mallorcan Nadal captured his fifth French Open title three weeks ago, giving him a seventh major championship. He's reached three of the last four Wimbledon finals, losing to Federer in 2006 and 2007 before besting him in '08.

Up next for Nadal will be talented Dutchman Robin Haase, who handled American James Blake 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 on Day 2. The former top-five star Blake is on the mend from a knee injury and just went 0-2 in the brief grass-court season.

In some other top-10 action, ninth-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer whipped oft- injured German Nicolas Kiefer 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 and 10th-seeded Frenchman Jo- Wilfried Tsonga got past American journeyman Robert Kendrick 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 6-4.

Thirteenth-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny beat Israeli Dudi Sela 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2) and 18th-seeded American Sam Querrey continued his fine season with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 2-1, retired victory over Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky, who was fresh off his grass-court title in Den Bosch last week. Querrey was a grass-court champion at London's second-most famous tennis club, The Queen's Club, two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, 25th-seeded Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci straight-setted fellow countryman Ricardo Mello and 26th-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon straight- setted Spain's Guillermo Alcaide.

An upset came when Italian Andreas Seppi subdued 19th-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (9-7), 6-2.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.