Bartoli, Kanepi among first round winners in Rome

Tennis Betting Lines

05/03/2009 - Rome, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Marion Bartoli and Kaia Kanepi were among the first round winners at the $2 million Internazionali BNL d'Italia tennis event.

The 11th-ranked Bartoli, of France, topped China's Peng Shuai, 6-0, 7-6 (7-3) in just under 90 minutes on the red clay at Foro Italico. Estonia's Kanepi, the 16th seed, was a 6-4, 6-3 winner over American Vania King.

In other first round action, Slovak Daniela Hantuchova deafeted Russian Vera Dushevina, 6-4, 6-1, and Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro topped Great Britain's Anne Keothavong, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.

One of two three-set matches of the day went to Sybille Bammer, who was a 7-6 (7-3), 4-6, 6-3 winner over China's Li Na, while the other went to Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, who battled from a set down to beat Amelie Mauresmo, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.

A pair of qualifiers moved on, as Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova beat Samantha Stosur 6-4, 6-2 and Japan's Ayumi Morita beat Monica Niculescu 6-1, 6-3.

The other matches featured Patty Schnyder topping Columbia's Mariana duque Marino 7-6 (7-1), 6-3, Lucie Safarova beating Mariya Koryttseva 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 and Francesca Schiavone defeating Alberta Brianti 6-3, 6-4 in an all- Italian matchup.

Serbian star Jelena Jankovic bested France's Alize Cornet in last year's Rome finale.

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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.