If all goes according to plan like it did at Wimbledon, we’ll see the top two players in men’s tennis meet at the U.S. Open finals. Roger Federer has won the last four Open titles in a row, all four against different opponents. None of those men was Rafael Nadal. The hard-hitting Spaniard put an end to Federer’s winning streak at Wimbledon and took over the No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings. He’s also the 11-8 favorite to double-up at Flushing Meadows; Federer is 13-8 to defend.

Although these are easily the two best players on the tour, they’re not a deadbolt lock to make the final. The popular Federer-Nadal props market has 11-10 odds of a Wimbledon rematch at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Federer is –175 to get all the way through the semis; Nadal is a fat –350, in part because third seed Novak Djokovic (+225) is on Federer’s side of the draw.

After the Sox finish their visit, the Toronto Blue Jays (68-64, -2.17 units) will pay their final respects to Yankee Stadium. Toronto won two out of three against the Yankees last week at the Rogers Centre; A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay were the winning pitchers for the Jays, and they’ll both get a chance to double dip in New York.

Burnett pitches the series opener Friday against Carl Pavano. He won his first start for the Yankees since April 2007, holding Baltimore to three runs in five innings of work on Saturday for the 5-3 victory. Pavano threw 91 pitches.

You gotta love a sport that runs 10 months out of the year. NASCAR is one of the most popular betting sports during the summertime, when nearly everything else but baseball has ground to a halt. And it’s such a simple sport to bet on, too – even if you don’t know a manifold from a manwich.

Your NASCAR handicapping research should always start with the track in question. Just because this isn’t Formula 1 doesn’t mean they’re all cookie-cutter courses. The longest superspeedways require a different approach than the half-mile tracks; there are also road courses, and one triangular course.

Each driver is best at one kind of track. Two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson is strongest on 1.5-mile ovals like Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is carrying the family reputation for races that require restrictor plates; he has five career wins at Talladega. Match the right track and driver, and you’ve won half the battle.

Big Brown was able to beat an average field in the final stages of the Haskell Invitational, but did not look like the dominant horse we saw run the first two jewels of the Triple Crown. I would find it hard to believe that he could rally against a champion like Curlin. If Curlin does not race in the Classic (he may run in the Breeders’ Cup Turf) Big Brown’s chances will improve greatly.

The United States men’s basketball team is expected to beat every single opponent it plays. It didn’t happen in Athens, though; Team USA lost three games to see its all-time Olympic record fall to 114-5.

That must have been quite the wake-up call. The team that landed in Beijing is taking things much more seriously. Kobe Bryant is there; so is coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is working with Mike D’Antoni to make sure Team USA plays a style that is more effective against international competition.

This approach has the United States once again favored quite heavily at 1-5 to win the gold medal. The defending winners from Argentina are the third favorites at 12-1; it looks like the toughest competition will come from Spain at 5-1. Pau Gasol, Jose Calderon and company won’t be pushovers – but Team USA looks too good, too deep and too committed to mess this one up.

If Big Brown posts another big bust, will he be forced to retire?

Much of the attention at tomorrow’s $1 Million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park will be on Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Big Brown, who makes his return to the race track after his embarrassing loss at the 2008 Belmont Stakes. The 1-2 morning line favorite, Big Brown (at least on paper) appears to be the easy pick. But ask anyone who witnessed jockey Kent Desmoreaux pull the horse back at the Belmont knows that anything can happen.

“It is a make-or-break race for sure - how can it not be?” said owner Michael Iavarone. “He just got pulled up at 1-5; if that happens again, then something is wrong with the horse, and where are you going from there?”

Desmoreaux will once again be riding Big Brown, this time from post position 4. On the inside rail is Magical Forest and to the outside is Coal Play in post 6. Trainer Rick Dutrow expects Big Brown to take and hold the lead.

“It would depend how he breaks, how they break,” Dutrow said earlier in the week. “He’s won on the lead; he’s won from off the pace. If our horse breaks good I’m sure he’ll be forwardly placed. Naturally, if he breaks bad then he’s going to have to work out a trip. It should be simple enough as long as the horse runs his race.”

Not one to put his foot in his mouth a second time, Dutrow is not guaranteeing a win when the gate swings open tomorrow at 6:14 PM EST.

“If he goes out there and runs his race, he’ll win,” Dutrow said. “If he doesn’t, he’ll get beat.”

Get all your horse racing odds here!

Phil Mickelson is the early favorite to win the 2008 PGA Championship

The last major event of the golf season is a little over a week away. The PGA Championship, aka “Glory’s Last Shot,” takes place this year at the Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Tiger Woods won this event in 2006 and 2007; Phil Mickelson was the 2005 champ and is the early favorite at 10-1 now that Tiger is on the injured list.

Mickelson spent some quality time at Oakland Hills on Tuesday, just two days before his expected appearance at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in nearby Akron, Ohio. Adam Scott (25-1) and Geoff Ogilvy (28-1) also got in a practice round.

Scott is getting some handicapping buzz for the Championship, which used to have a reputation as a “first-time” major after the likes of John Daly, Steve Elkington and Davis Love III became champions. The golfer getting the most attention from a first-timer standpoint is Sergio Garcia, the second favorite at 14-1.

The competition for Olympic medals will be tight in Beijing. But when it comes to the gold, oddsmakers are expecting the host nation to come through in spades. China is a heavy 2-5 favorite to rake in the most gold medals this summer; the United States is a distant second at 13-8.

As the host, China gets to send a certain minimum number of qualified athletes to each event. There will be 613 Chinese athletes at the Games this year compared to 407 in Athens. They’ll do well in their traditional strongholds like diving, badminton and table tennis. But China is pulling out all the stops to bring home the most gold at Beijing.

When the Soviet Union made a similar Olympic push during the Cold War, they won the gold medal race on a regular basis, including their first attempt at the 1956 Games in Melbourne. China today has significantly more economic clout than the U.S.S.R. did back then.

Let’s hope things go right for Lefty.

Well, things certainly haven’t gone Padraig Harrington’s way since we last checked in on the reigning British Open champion. He sprained his right wrist on Saturday hitting an impact bag, and he might not even make it to this year’s Open at Royal Birkdale. Paddy’s freefall down the futures market continues; he was at 33-1 at press time.

Strangely, that leaves Phil Mickelson rising into second-favorite status at 12-1. This despite Lefty’s awful career record at the British Open, including missing the cut last year. He simply doesn’t have the experience playing the kind of courses – and in the kind of weather – you find across the pond.

Sergio Garcia does. He remains the Open favorite at 8-1, and although he’s never won a major, Garcia has finished in the Top 10 six of the last seven years, narrowly losing the 2007 Open to Harrington in a playoff. He’ll get that monkey off his back eventually, just like Mickelson did.

Bless you, college football. While pro sporting events slip further and further into the abyss of sanitized corporate “family entertainment,” the experience of going to a college game at the local stadium remains as boorishly fun as ever.

Having said that, this list of college football traditions makes no sense to me. Do opposing teams actually harbor ill will toward the legendary “dotting of the I” by The Ohio State University Marching Band sousaphonist? The author even suggests they should cross the T instead. Last time I checked, there was no T in “Ohio.”

The author even hates the Stanford Tree, and by extension assumes opposing teams do as well. Where does this hate come from? It’s a tree, for crying out loud. I’ll give you ridiculous, which is the point in the first place, but not hateful.

Unless you’re from Cal, that is. Oski vs. Tree remains one of the classic mascot fights of any college sport.