Sharapova will lead-off for Russia against Spain

Tennis Betting Lines

02/03/2012 - Moscow, Russia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 2012 Fed Cup quarterfinal between host Russia and Spain will commence Saturday with a singles match between Australian Open runner-up Maria Sharapova and Spaniard Silvia Soler-Espinosa.

"I'm satisfied with the draw," Sharapova said. "I wanted to play in the first match and I'm happy I will."

Sharapova was last week's Aussie runner-up to No. 1 Belarusian star Victoria Azarenka. The currently third-ranked Sharapova is a three-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1.

The Sharapova-Soler-Espinosa match will be followed by a rubber between former top-five Russian star Svetlana Kuznetsova and Carla Suarez Navarro.

On Sunday, the reverse singles will pit Sharapova against Suarez Navarro and Kuznetsova versus Soler-Espinosa, while the doubles call for a Russian tandem of Ekaterina Makarova and Nadia Petrova to take on a Spanish duo of Nuria Llagostera Vives and Arantxa Parra Santonja.

The Russians, captained by Shamil Tarpischev, were last year's Fed Cup runners-up to the Czech Republic.

Team Spain is captained by one of tennis' all-time greats, Arantxa Sanchez- Vicario.

Russia is 5-1 all-time versus Spain in Fed Cup play. The Russians own four titles, while the Spaniards are five-time winners of the coveted chalice.

The winner here will meet the Belgium-Serbia victor in the semifinals in April.

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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.