Men's tournament

Bets placed (current bookmaker price): Murray 11/2 (7/2); Nalbandian 33/1 (33/1); Baghdatis 150/1 (66/1)

Small value on Murray plus the "Murray to beat Federer" bet incentive. Bandy has tough draw. The Bag could have a run - in Djoko section (who could suffer from the heat).

Women's tournament

Bets placed: Kvitova 66/1 (250/1); Bartoli 150/1 (100/1); Aza 16/1 (9/1); Woza 10/1 (8/1)

Kvitova in appalling form hence latest price. Bartoli playing ok. Aza was value pick and good draw (only evens with one firm to make the semis). Needs to keep her head screwed on. Woza, won New Haven last night (for the third time). Plays too much but stamina seems ok. If she wins this tourny will replace Serena as No1. Woza one of two women we backed at beginning of year to be No1 at year end (14/1) so it would be great if she won it. Runner up last year so lots of points to defend. Good friends Woza v Aza my dream final. In my dreams.....

Andy Murray has been drawn in the opposite half of the draw to Federer. Some people will think this was inevitable as he was seeded four and therefore would automatically be in Nadal's half of the draw as four plays one and two plays three. However that is not automatically the case as the number one seed has a 50% chance of theoretically playing the three or four seed in the semi final depending on the draw.

Well it's the luck of the draw for us as it keeps our ante post bet for Murray to beat Federer in a grand slam final alive. In fact the last chance for him to do so at the 16/1 we took at the beginning of the year.

The event starts on Monday and I'll have a final review of our selections before then. Meanwhile Aza seems to have been handed quite a good draw and looks to be a fair punt at the 16s we took a few weeks back. The scream queen has been picked by Brad Gilbert as the likely winner, which is an interesting call as these pundits do not often stray too far from picking the obvious favourite.

I watched Caroline Wozniacki win her semi-final and the final today at the Montreal Open. The matches were postponed from the rain soaked weekend. She beat both Kuznetsova and Zvonareva in straight sets. Both her opponents had shown improved form in recent weeks.

With the defection of Serena from the US Open Woza will be seeded number one. She reached the final last year and is priced at 10/1 to go one better with William Hill and Blue Square. I've had 5pts @ 10/1 with William Hill.

The tournament could be quite open this year with both Serena and Justine non-runners. In addition Kimmy, the current favourite with most bookmakers, looks like she might be carrying a thigh injury.

That gives us four selections in the ladies' event with a total outlay of 17pts. Let's hope our bets go as well as they did in the French Open and Wimbledon!

I think it's worth taking a small bet on Baghdatis to win this current tournament in Cincinnati. Having beaten Nadal last night after being 0-6 HTH he faces Federer in the semi-final. The HTH is almost as bad although Marcos posted his first win over Fed this year at Indian Wells and now trails him 1-6. However before this year's victory he'd not played him for two years.

The other semi is between Fish and Roddick. He holds a 3-0 HTH against Fish so would obviously start favourite against him however he's 1-2 against Roddick but has not played him for three years. Therefore I'm having 2pts at 13/2 Baghdatis to win Cincinnati with Totesport.

News from the women's event is that ante-post favourite Serena Williams will miss the tournament through injury. We have three bets so far on the event and our main hope Azarenka is now in to 7/1 so I'm happy with the 16/1 we secured.

In the men's event Federer, Nadal and Murray are similarly priced around the 3/1 mark so the 11/2 Murray we took looks fair. However Murray looked exhausted in the heat yesterday in his defeat to Fish. Nadal went down in three sets to Baghdatis and made an uncharacteristic number of unforced errors in doing so. Having said that Marcos played very well - his serve in particular working well. He was coming off the back of a win over Berdych so is clearly in form. I reckon Baghdatis is worth a speculative 1pt ew with Betfred at 150/1 for the New York event. If you can't get on with Fred VC is 125/1. That will give us three runners in the men's event with our 33/1 Nalbandian (now 20/1 best each way).