Stan Hey: 6-5 Against

The sports that have entertained, if not enriched us, over the summer are all but gone. In comes the international rugby season, with a fistful of "friendly" matches this weekend, mostly too unpredictable or too one-sided for betting. An accumulator on wins for England, France, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Ireland pays just over 3-1.

Instead, we turn to the last individual tennis tournament of the year, the Masters Cup in Shanghai tomorrow, featuring the top eight-ranked players, minus the injured Rafael Nadal. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga should be flying after winning in Paris last week. So the big-hitter is first bet, at 15-2 (£5 each-way, Bet365). His group in the preliminaries includes Nikolay Davydenko, Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro, at least two of whom look finished for the season.

In the other group, Andy Murray faces Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and Gilles Simon. Murray's winning streak was halted by David Nalbandian in Paris but if he's still motivated he can reach the final – £5 each-way at 100-30, Blue Square.

The NFL season enters its second half tomorrow with the Titans (8 wins, 0 losses) leading the way in the AFC and the Giants (7-1) leading the NFC. But both face bone-crushing "road" games tomorrow, at the Bears and Eagles respectively, so take the odds for home wins: 27-20 Chicago (£10 Ladbrokes), 4-6 Philadelphia (£10 generally).

*Lewis Hamilton, a born racer, went "safety-first" in Brazil and just about got away with it. Congratulations, but if he was a jockey he'd have been "had in" by the stewards. Septimus went off like a rocket in the Melbourne Cup and set up the race for 40-1 chance Viewed. Baffling.