Henin advances past first round to face Argentina's Gisela Dulko.

Justine Henin, a wild card at the 2010 BNP Paribas Open, is through to second round following a strong effort in Indian Wells.  Henin achieved a straight sets victory over Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia and here is the scoring line:

[WC] J Henin (BEL) d M Rybarikova (SVK) 62 62.

Now Henin draws what many think will be her next victim: Gisela Dulko, the 31 seed in Indian Wells.

Odds are already released and Henin is an absolutely crushing favorite with bet365:

Henin, -2500 (1/25)
Dulko, +900 (9/1)

There's a huge gap between the absolute values of the odds (absolute value is just the number you get when you drop the "+" or "-" sign in American odds) and that usually means there isn't a lot of value to be had in the match.  However, someone needs to point out that Dulko is probably not as bad as her +900 (9/1) odds make her appear.  Dulko, now 25, has been solid in the last year as this is what her current Grand Slam chart looks like:

2010 Australian Open - 3rd round
2009 US Open - 4th round
2009 Wimbledon - 3rd round
2009 French Open - 3rd round

In the past year Dulko has beaten Jelena Jankovic, Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova (at Wimbledon), Dominika Cibulkova (when was ranked 12th), and Ana Ivanovic.  While Henin is better than all those players you can't treat Henin like a lock against someone as capable as Dulko and there could be an upset here.

If you were to predict the scoring line it would be something like 6-4, 6-4 in Henin's favor but there's still no way Dulko is as bad as the odds make her appear and that means you should be making a small bet on Dulko here.  If you don't want to back Dulko, then at least avoid betting Henin in the futures market for the outright winner of the BNP Paribas Open until after she wins this match and only if she puts up a straight sets victory with no tiebreakers.

This match resembles, to a degree, the Australian Open match between Nadia Petrova and Kim Clijsters.  Clijsters came in as the heavy favorite and walked away the loser.  Dulko's true odds here are more like +650 (13/2) and while I hate recommending betting someone that will probably lose, it looks like the mathematical thing to do.

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