23 Jan part two

Confusing business with sport going on all round the globe!

Had caught up with lost sleep today so was up and played the footie with some success. If I were being brutally honest I'd have to admit there was an element of chasing after last night's horror show, but I stuck to the staking plan for footie so it wasn't a case of lumping on bigger stakes, more a case of possibly getting involved when I maybe should've left some matches alone. I do remember reading somewhere that Premiership teams have a very good record against lower division clubs in the FA Cup despite the popular perception of the Cup being prone to upsets. It's a bit like WTA favs I suppose, in that people remember the upsets disproportionately because of the fuss made of them. But if they were that common then there wouldn't be such a fuss!Was mulling over the idea of starting a Tip of the Day on here for a laugh, but looking at tonight's 4 matches in Melbourne it wouldn't be a good idea today! 4 very tricky matches, and may not play any at all.

23 Jan

Two awful train wrecks today, and it had started so well!

Just to wrap up yesterday, 5 of the 8 favs won, with JJ, Bartoli and Clijsters perishing, Clijsters crashing out in one of the shock results for some time.

Started off well last night with wins on Bepa and Schiavone, offset with a losing lay of Stosur who played very solid.

Don't like to dwell on losses. Suffice to say should never have got involved in the Li-Hantuchova match, two streaky players who can change in an instant from playing super tennis to being unable to get a ball in court, and for no apparent reason, and switch back just as quickly. And in the other, Peer went from looking the likely winner of the 1st set, having missed numerous bp's and being competitive at 4-4, to lose 2 games and the set in the blink of an eye. Woz's price collapsed like the proverbial house of cards and there was no way to get out of that as Peer's game did as well.

7 of the 8 favs won today, which makes a losing day even more irritating! Though I did manage to back the one outsider.

So back in the red for the week, with most of yesterday's nice wins blown away.

Friday 22 Jan part two

Had a quick look round the matches after making the prev post and noticed Bart trading sub 1.2 early in the 2nd set. Bit silly, I thought, so whacked in a lay. Happy days!
Now I really am off to bed!

PS as an aside, what a waste of time these daft Google ads are. I whacked em on as it was easy to do but not had a single click. How does anyone make money from them? And how can the advertisers be getting anything from their outlay?

Friday 22 Jan

It's getting too hard to think of snazzy titles for posts!

Nice when a form pick comes in, as so often the form is confounded. ABond had looked the part last week and so far this week, and made the most of an undercooked JJ, despite the 9-0 h2h. Then got suckered by injury timeouts taken by Kirilenko and Wickmayer. Doh! And was a bit guilty of overstaking after the early win. Tsk bad lack of discipline, that.
That'll do me for the day. No interest in the other 3 matches and I could do with some sleep.

Much ado about nothing

Confidence a bit low after yesterday's bad call in the Deme match so I just watched most of last night's matches. Had a small dabble on a few and ended up level. 2 lays of the Williams sisters didn't help, but I think they were justified - Venus has a habit of going walkies in the 2nd set, and Serena took to court with both legs heavily bandaged.

11 of the 16 favs won, so back to the usual 70% level. Notable casualties were Ivanovic and Lisicki, the former with a ball toss of indescribable horror, the latter showing once again that she's far from the finished product. The market seems to have certain players it consistently overrates - good for laying!

Also lost £30 laying Liverpool, so another slightly red day.

Deja Vu

Henin vs Deme - it was like the last 5 years hadn't happened! Of course there's been many thrilling matches between other players since, but somehow the close matches between the younger brigade don't engender the same edge-of-the-seat feeling.

Somehow I managed to screw up the betting. I hadn't originally intended to bet on the match but couldn't resist playing small and trading the flipflops once it was apparent it was going to be that sort of match. Had a nice small green on each but then it seemed to me that Henin was visibly tiring and missing her shots, and also had trouble with her left thigh. So I moved all the green over to Deme and chucked in some more. Damn!

Of the 30 matches, 24 were won by the favs, maintaining the high 80% record. None of the big names lost, was surprised to see Rezai lose, and KBond lost to Baltacha.

Still wasn't too confident to go anything like full stakes on anyone and seemed to spend most of the night taking small positions then deciding to reverse out for a small green/red. Two steps forward, two back. The final bet on Deme turned a small green day into a small red one. But I can live with that.

Yet to bet

2 days of Melbourne gone and I haven't had a bet yet! Well, not quite true - had a bet on Fedak on the basis she beat Mladenovic, the junior world no1, in qualies and was playing Polona Hercog, who has an awful hard court record. But when the 1st set proved to be very close I decided to get out for no loss. Fedak went on to lose, so maybe beating Mladenovic was no big deal.

Found it hard on the 1st day to get into the tennis after following the NFL. Each sport and it's market has it's own rhythm and patterns and it was hard to switch after 6 hours of NFL. Plus the outside courts were on/off due to rain delays, never a good time to bet. So I just watched Pova vs Kiri then went to bed.

Very sad to see Pova lose like that. The serve seemed to have improved since last season - 61% 1st serves in - but still not the reliable weapon it used to be, and she made countless ue's. All the more baffling as she had apparently played some good stuff in the HK exhibition a couple weeks ago. There must be a concern that we might never see her back at her pre-injury level when she strolled to this very title 2 years ago. But you could say she's lucky to be playing at all - RC injuries tend to end careers!

Nothing really seemed worth a bet today, other than the previously mentioned aborted bet on Fedak. 1r is a very tricky time - one hesitates to pile in on the favs as all will be having their 1st matches, some maybe their 1st matches of the season, yet there's no confidence in any of the outsiders either. Having said that, of the 50 1r matches completed, 40 have been won by the fav, a surprisingly high % for 1r. High profile casualties were Pova and Cibulkova, the latter blowing a 5-1 3rd set lead.

At least we're into the 2r matches tonight, with some amazing matchups, headlined by Dementieva vs Henin and Wickmayer vs Pennetta. Neither match seems worth a bet on, but should be good just to watch.

Tennis only for a week

Phew lucky to get out alive from the NFL tonight! Did not expect such a dominant perf from Minnesota - their o-line held up well, and their d-line ran all over the Dallas o-line. Thankfully managed to call the change of momentum in the NYJ @ SD game correctly to recoup some of the loss.

Stuff that for a bundle of laughs, nothing but the tennis for me now.

Till next weekend anyway!

A timely loss

Got a kicking on the footie and NFL yesterday, but strangely am quite pleased. Was getting a bit nervous how well things have been going since I started this blog and I'm almost relieved to post the 1st losing day just before the Aus Open starts. Bizarrely I was letting the record on here get to me a little, but I can relax a bit now!Must steer clear of Everton matches in future. Cannot stand that collection of lowlifes and thugs masquerading as a football team and it mucks up my judgement. I should've taken the red as soon as they went ahead but held on for a Citeh equaliser. The other loss was RM - could not believe they would be goalless for 90 mins and kept my bet for what I thought would be the inevitable equaliser.

Sadly Ariz looked well off the pace plus they lost 2 db's to injuries, whereas NO returned to their sparkling early season form. In an interview Brees virtually admitted to being non-triers in their last 3 games - non-triers at the tailend of the season is accepted in the NFL!Dallas is the main business later, then into the madness that is the 1st day of the Aus Open. 32 matches in one day! 64 if you bet on the ATP as well. That's as many as you get in the whole week of the average tournament. I'm absolutely gutted that Pova and Makiri, 2 of my favs, have to play each other in 1r, but at least the match will be on tv.