Montanes takes Stuttgart crown

Tennis Betting Lines

07/18/2010 - Stuttgart, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Spain's Alberto Montanes won the Mercedes Cup on Sunday when Gael Monfils of France retired in the second set of the final because of an ankle injury.

Montanes earned a 6-2, 1-2 triumph for his second title of 2010 and his fifth career ATP singles crown. He also won in Estoril in May, beating Roger Federer in the semifinals on the way to the championship.

The fifth-seeded Spaniard breezed through the opening set Sunday in a mere 33 minutes, and Monfils appeared to turn his ankle in the last game. After the trainer taped up the ankle, Monfils took the court for the second set, but decided to call it quits after the third game despite a 2-1 edge.

This was just the second meeting between the two and the second victory for Montanes, who also prevailed in a three-setter back in September 2005 in Bucharest.

Montanes became the sixth different Spaniard to win this tournament and first since Rafael Nadal did it for a second time in 2007. Nadal also won it in 2005. David Ferrer (2006), Alex Corretja (1997), Alberto Berasategui (1994) and Jose Higueras (1983) are the others.

Monfils was appearing in his first final of 2010 and was gunning for his third career ATP singles crown. He fell to 2-8 all-time in title matches.

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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.