Nadal-Querrey will kickoff Spain-USA Davis Cup semi

Tennis Betting Lines

09/18/2008 - Madrid, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Wimbledon, reigning four-time French Open and Olympic champion Rafael Nadal will open up Friday's reverse singles against American Sam Querrey, as Spain and the defending champion United States meet in a best-of-five Davis Cup semifinal in Madrid.

The top-ranked Nadal and No. 39 Querrey will do battle, followed by a rubber between Spaniard David Ferrer and former world No. 1 American Andy Roddick on Day 1. Querrey is filling in this week for James Blake, who helped the U.S. win its first Davis Cup title in 12 years last year, but pulled out of this semifinal last week, citing exhaustion.

On Saturday, the doubles rubber will pit a Spanish team of lefthanders Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco against an American duo of Mike Bryan and Mardy Fish, who joined the draw this week when it was announced that Bob Bryan would be unable to play for the U.S. due to a shoulder injury.

Sunday's reverse singles currently call for Nadal to meet Roddick and Ferrer to take on Querrey, who will make his Davis Cup debut here on Friday.

The tie will be staged on a temporary clay court at Madrid's Plaza de Toros Las Ventas. The favored Spaniards are captained by Emilio Sanchez, while Patrick McEnroe guides the U.S.

The United States and Spain will meet for the ninth time in their history and for the fifth time this decade. The Americans are 5-3 against the Spaniards, winning the last meeting in a World Group quarterfinal last year in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The Spain-USA winner will visit the Argentina-Russia victor in the final in November. The Argentines play host to the Russians in Buenos Aires this week.

The U.S. leads all nations with 32 Davis Cup titles and beat a visiting Russian squad in last year's finale in Portland. Spain owns two championships, including a 3-2 victory over the Americans in the 2004 final in Seville.

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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.