As sports fans, our cup has runneth over lately with a catalogue of unmissable events.
We’ve had Wimbledon, top notch cricket and golf, F1, UFC… oh, and the small matter of the football World Cup.
Punters placing multi-sport accas have had plenty of opportunities to find value across the eclectic calendar. And one such Sky Bet customer has come up trumps with a ten-fold that incorporated the World Cup semi-final between Spain and Belgium, a stacked UFC 329 card and the Scottish Open golf.
Their acca kicked off on Thursday and ran through until Sunday… in which time they had turned their £20 stake into a cool payout of £21,303.
Now that’s a long weekend to remember!
No Pain for Spain
You could almost sense the World Cup kick up a gear at the quarter-final stage.
There were plenty of mouthwatering clashes amongst the last eight teams standing, with Spain vs Belgium standing out as a potential slobberknocker.
The Spaniards started brightly in Los Angeles, as has become their trademark, and the Belgians were hanging on as they looked to repel wave after wave of attacks.
In the end, the pressure proved too much as Fabian Ruiz was presented with a tap-in in the 30th minute following good work from the likes of Pedro Porro and Dani Olmo.
Credit to Belgium though, who stuck to their guns and managed to find an equaliser against the run of play just before half time. Timothy Castagne found a pocket of space to cross from and he picked out Charles de Ketelaere, whose header rocketed into the corner of the net.
Game on.
The second half followed a similar pattern, with Spain dominating both possession and territory, but they could not find a route to goal – extra time appeared increasingly likely.
Step forward super sub Mikel Merino, who had notched the winner in Spain’s victory over Portugal in the last 16. The Arsenal man once again found himself in the right place at the right time to take advantage of a spill from Senne Lammens and tap home in the 88th minute.
The scoreline would remain 2-1 to Spain as the final whistle blew, so our punter’s first selection was home.
Fight Night
UFC 329 was one of the most eagerly-anticipated cards in quite some time, with Conor McGregor making his comeback after five years out of the octagon.
The Irishman’s return didn’t last that long, however, as a knee injury suffered in the early seconds of the contest effectively handed Max Holloway a TKO victory.
There was better news for the Brit, Paddy Pimblett, as he continued his ascent of the lightweight division with a sublime submission stoppage of Benoit Saint Denis.
The customer backed both of those outcomes and also added Robert Whittaker and Damian Pinas to their card – they defeated Nikita Krylov and Cesar Almeida respectively.
So another four selections on the acca betslip were in as of the early hours of Sunday morning… attention now turned to the Scottish Open golf.
Top Punting
The Scottish Open is a co-sanctioned event from the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour, and coming just a week prior to the Open Championship – and played on a classical Links course – it provides essential reps for the players.
As such, a strong field assembles each year in North Berwick, so in theory it’s not the most attractive of betting heats.
But even so, our punter locked in FIVE selections in various top finish markets:
- Rory McIlroy – Top 10 Finish
- Tommy Fleetwood – Top 20 Finish
- Robert MacIntyre – Top 20 Finish
- Matt Fitzpatrick – Top 20 Finish
- Chris Gotterup – Top 20 Finish
With just a round to play on Sunday, things were looking good. Fitzpatrick and MacIntyre were tied for the lead, Gotterup was in joint-fourth and Fleetwood was also inside the top 20.
The most alarming selection, somewhat surprisingly, was McIlroy, who was languishing in 26th after firing a dismal 73 on Saturday.
But the Irishman is one of the greatest ever to swing a club, so it was perhaps no shock when he laid waste to the Renaissance Club on Sunday, birdieing five of his opening seven holes.
Although he took his foot off the gas thereafter, there was still plenty of strong play from McIlroy and he ended up carding a round of 64 – tied as the day’s best.
Ultimately that propelled him up to seventh on the leaderboard, and while it was Tom Kim that ultimately hoisted the trophy, the rest of our punter’s picks all finished inside their allocated positions.
And so an acca that started with the opening round of the Scottish Open on Thursday concluded with its final holes on Sunday… it’s a long weekend that one customer won’t be forgetting in a hurry.