Braun leads Chivas USA to road win against K.C.

Soccer Betting Lines

07/10/2010 - Kansas City, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Justin Braun scored two goals in the second half as Chivas USA defeated the Kansas City Wizards, 2-0, on Saturday night at CommunityAmerica Ballpark for its first MLS victory in more than two months.

Braun scored in the 56th and 87th minutes, helping Chivas USA end a seven-game winless run dating back to a 4-0 win over the New England Revolution on May 5. Braun leads Chivas (4-9-2) with six goals.

Kansas City (3-8-3) lost its third straight. The Wizards have just one victory in their last 12 MLS matches.

K.C. created better chances in the first half, but Davy Arnaud fired high, Kei Kamara was denied off a well-executed free kick by Chivas goalie Zach Thornton and Josh Wolff couldn't solve Thornton from a tough angle.

Thornton left the match with an apparent ankle injury after the save on Wolff, and Michael Lahoud followed with a half-chance that K.C. goalie Jimmy Nielsen saved to keep the match scoreless at halftime.

Four streakers ran onto the field at halftime but Braun turned heads after the break. Kamara turned a header wide early for K.C., then Braun scored the first of his two goals to send Chivas on its way to its second road win this year.

Braun latched onto a poor clearance from Wizards defender Jimmy Conrad and hit the upper-right corner from 17 yards to leave Nielsen no chance in the 56th.

Stephane Auvray should have tied the match with just over 15 minutes remaining but put a wide-open header into the side netting off a corner from just a few yards out.

Braun followed with his second goal, this time on a perfect shot from the edge of the area to the top-left corner to seal the win with three minutes left.

K.C. will try to bounce back Wednesday with its first road win of the year at the Columbus Crew. Chivas is off until July 24 when it visits Real Salt Lake.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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