Bored now

Doing this blog over the last 3 months has been good for keeping focus and discipline but it's become a bit of a chore now, so I'm stopping for the time being. If things get a bit crazy and there's the need for some perspective I'll start it up again, but goodbye and good luck for now.

24 March

15/20 favs won yesterday, with Keothavong, Bammer, Mattek, Kulikova and Morita the losing favs, no really big upsets. That could well happen today as the seeds have their first matches of the tournament.

I took a couple of losses on Keothavong and Voegele.The Voegele red was particularly irritating as I could've greened out twice for a nice profit but felt Cornetto would blow it in the end. As for Keothavong, the old ego got a bit bound up in that as I'd tipped her as the tip of the day and waited too long before redding out. Might have to stop the tip of the day if it's going to mess with my head like that! Thankfully, some wins on other sports saved the day.
Some very interesting matches today, could be a cracker. Strange the Yanks don't start TV coverage of Indian Wells or Miami, two of the biggest tournaments of the year, till the Saturday - we'll miss seeing some nice matches.

23 March

A stunning 11/12 1r favs won, with only Dushevina losing. 3 of the winners lost the 1st set - a deadly scenario for in play lumpers! Didn't write down the qualie favs so can't be sure, but I think 8/12 won, with Sevastova (inj), Kerber, Flipkens and Tanasugarn probably having been fav and lost. Had suspected Sevastova of being a LL but it appears not.

I messed up a bet on Duque Marino yesterday - wasn't paying attention as I was watching the cricket IPL and failed to red out early. Still surprised she lost to Morita on these slow courts. Then I completely forgot I'd had a bet on West Ham, didn't even watch the game! Don't think it made much difference as I'd've redded out at 0-2 which wouldn't've saved that much. Other than that, Lucie saved the day with a nice inplay lay of Kanepi at the start of the 2nd set. Poor Kanepi. She had been on a roll and playing great stuff up till she got injured in Madrid a year ago, but has struggled badly since.

I do like Mondays

A relatively, almost seductively, straightforward day yesterday. Several of the very short priced favs obligingly lost the first set and could then be backed at nice odds, and then went on to win. And the longer priced favs of interest trotted up quite nicely. Bottled out of Tanasugarn on the basis of the courtspeed, even though it was hard to envisage that eclipsing the gulf in class with the hapless Zec Peskiric. Tana did go on to win.

Annoyingly spaffed away some money on the NHL, but can't complain too much as I've done surprisingly well on that since starting having the odd bet - it's something to watch while the tennis is on but there's no stream. But glad to have clawed back last week's losses.
Qualies finals today - tread with caution backing the top seeds as they may well know they're already through as lucky losers!

Favs lose both finals

It's quite rare for both favs to get turned over in the finals. I did fancy JJ pre-match, and she produced a tactically superb performance, much as she'd done vs Stosur. Her new coach is proving worth his weight in gold as her perfs are now so different from the chaotic unstructured aimless perfs we'd been seeing from her over the last couple of years. Maybe it's time for Woz to get an outside coach and cut the paternal ties as she looked quite hapless. It was her 4th big final and she's been spanked in all 4.

Don't follow the men that much, but was good to see "old" Ljubo do the business.
Had my first bets for a few days yesterday (Sunday) and managed to notch up a nice positive day. Probably went in a bit too much on Ljubo, but he did look the better bet throughout the match. After the favs had been quite solid in the early stages of the tournament, Indian Wells turned out to be a bit of a graveyard!

As I type, Betfair haven't even acknowledged the existence of Miami with no markets whatsoever, so I guess the chances of markets for the qualies, which start in 4 hours time, are pretty slim!