Friday sees the penultimate round of the Super Rugby regular season get underway, Pakistan clash with Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup, the French Open continues at Roland Garos and there is a variety of televised international football to look forward to.

 

 

 

Super Rugby

The Bulls are involved in the first game of Round 17 when they face a tough test away to the Highlanders in Dunedin. After recovering from injury Handre Pollard has been flown out to New Zealand to take the skippers armband for the Bulls who drew against the Blues in Auckland last week. It’s a huge game with the play off hopes of both these sides hanging in the balance right now.

In the betting the Highlanders are currently 3/10 favourites with the draw at 28/1, the Bulls can be backed at 28/10 and the handicap sees the Bulls given a 10.5 point start.

We go with the Highlanders to come out on top but with so much at stake the margin could be of the narrow variety.

Click here to bet on Highlanders v Bulls.

The second of Friday’s matches sees the Reds host the Blues in Brisbane. The Queensland side have fallen out of contention for a play off place on the back of 4 successive defeats whilst the Blues are still in the mix although they would most likely need to win this game and next week’s visit to the Hurricanes.

The current betting has the Blues as favourites at 13/20 with the draw at 25/1 and a home win for the Reds is trading at 14/10.

The Blues have the greater incentive but they have yet to win away this season. That would have to be a concern against a Reds side who have generally given their all and the home side might just edge this one.

Click here to bet on Reds v Blues

 

Cricket World Cup

Bristol hosts Friday’s Cricket World Cup clash between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Pakistan have been unpredictable so far, crashing to a heavy defeat to West Indies first time out before turning England over in their second outing. Sri Lanka also have one win and one defeat against their name. They were thumped by New Zealand by 10 wickets in their first match but they put themselves on the board with a win against Afghanistan earlier this week.

We have a full match preview available on this link and for a betting interest we are looking for a high scoring game. Pakistan are currently 1/3 favourites to win the match and Sri Lanka can be backed at 12/5. click here for all markets

 

 

French Open Tennis

Rain has been playing havoc with the schedule at Roland Garos but at the time of writing we have one of the men’s semi finals confirmed and we focus on the game between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Both players have dropped just one set on their way to the last 4 although Federer had by far the harder of the quarter finals where he got the better of Stan Wawrinka (7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-4). In contrast 11 time French Open champion Nadal breezed through his quarter final clash with Kei Nishikori (6-1, 6-1, 6-3).

In the head to heads Nadal leads with 23 wins to Federer’s 16 and Nadal dominates on the clay surface with 5 wins from 5 against Federer at Roland Garos. The players met in the final back in 2011 and Nadal won (7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1) and Nadal also beat Federer in the final in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

With that record in mind it’s not surprising to see Nadal chalked up as 1/8 favourite whilst Federer can currently be backed at 21/4. Nadal is 9/10 to win in straight sets.

Click here to bet on the Mens Singles at the French Open

 

Football

Qualifying for Euro 2020 continues and a number of games are televised live including Georgia v Gibraltar, Norway v Romania, Denmark v Ireland and Faroe Islands v Spain.

The Women’s World Cup also gets underway on Friday and host nation France are 1/8 favourites to start their campaign with a victory against Korea Republic. Let’s take a look at the outright winner betting:

France 16/5

USA 13/4

Germany 21/4

England 6/1

Netherlands 12/1

Japan 13/1

Australia 16/1

21/1 and better the rest.

South Africa have been drawn in Group B with Germany, China and Spain and Banyana, who’s first match comes against Spain on Saturday, are 289/1 outsiders to win the tournament.

Click here to bet on international football.

 

Horse Racing

Friday’s local horse racing comes from Fairview with a 9 race card on the turf track scheduled to get underway at 11:55.

Remember we also have betting available for the upcoming features in the KZN season. Click here to bet on South African horse racing.

 

Note, all odds quoted are subject to change.

Have a great day punting.