Internet down

What a nightmarish day! About 3.10pm my internet connection just packed up for no reason at all. I've just got a standard ADSL setup, nothing fancy, but it's been very reliable for years, now it just died on me. I was running a few medium footie positions and a biggish one on Deme vs Oudin, waited for a bit to see if it would come back to life but no joy, so decided better get the f*** out of everything pronto! Never placed many bets on the phone and was pleasantly surprised how clued up the bloke was taking the bets. Then down to the internet cafe asap to try and rescue what I could.

Quite happy to get out of the day with a reasonable profit in the end after all that chaos, though obviously a bit annoyed at the footie reds and the red on Deme, solely due to having to get out as best I could. In fact I was rather a lot more red on Deme but managed to reduce it down the cafe.
The connection resumed at 11.15pm just as suddenly as it had died, and again for no discernible reason. Maybe some workman had cut through a cable, who knows, but it has made me aware just how vulnerable you could be. Nowt to be done about it, though.

Dubai kicks off tomorrow with a pretty full program, and a few matches in Memphis too. Not too sure how much liquidity there'll be at 8am UK time on a Sunday morning with the matches not televised. The Sunday kickoff might also explain the losses by Schiavone, Lisicki and Dushevina earlier this week (ahem).

12 Feb

After the previous 2 days carnage some sanity returned as 7/8 favs obliged today, the only fav to fall being Peer in Paris, blown away by a red-hot Safarova. Tomorrow's clash between Penne and her should be something else - think they should consider new balls every 5/7 games, not 7/9! They're going to get a fearful bashing. Sad to see Agnes getting an attack of the walkabouts again - she'd been doing really well so far this year and was clearly the better player till she inexplicably left the building.

Managed to tiptoe my way through the day ending with a nice profit. Just the 4 matches tomorrow as we head into the weekend so will be having a look at the footie and anything else on the TV.

Favs continue to struggle

Only 3/5 favs won in Pattaya, Chan and Dushevina losing, a surprising loss by Dushevina, who is usually very solid against the lower ranked players. And only 2/5 won in Paris, with Rezai, Schiavone and Schnyder perishing. Looks like the Fed Cup form just never translates very well to main tour events, as Safarova and Petkovic had poor results at the weekend but have come out and done well in Paris. I'm also quite surprised at how easily Patty appears to have lost to Oudin, though she often takes a set to get going so perhaps the 1st set scoreline isn't wholly representative. I had anticipated the wily old campaigner, who had played well in her 1st match, to have too many tricks for the youngster who would never have played anyone of Patty's ilk before.

Had another good day with a few in running bets on the tennis coming in. I did let a bet on Patty run too long and may have got a bit ego-bound as she was the tip of the day. You cannot afford to let the need to be right affect you, and thinking back as dispassionately as I can I was probably guilty of that. Cost me a chunk of the day's profits! May have to re-examine doing the tip of the day experiment if it's going to mess with my head like that.Again some very interesting matches today. Was seething when Eurosport didn't cover the Schnyder match last night - hopefully they will cover all 4 qf's today. They didn't even have it on their much advertised subscription stream player. What a shocking channel ES is. They have their exclusive WTA deal but really do mess about with the coverage. The WTA must look at better options when the deal comes up for renewal, as the ES coverage doesn't do the sport justice.

Back to normal

After a crazy few days it was a relief to have a nice low key day today! Think the antennae must've been working well as it turned out to be carnage for the favs.

In Pattaya only 3 of the 7 favs won. This amounts to an absolute bloodbath in WTA terms, and quite unusual for this season so far. Losing favs were KDK by retirement (went into the match with an ankle injury), Goerges to a resurgent Karatantcheva, Mirza, and Lisicki. Not a massive surprise about any of them really. In Paris, 3 of the 5 favs won, Wickmayer and Vesnina losing. Martic impressed in beating Wickmayer and is definitely one for the notebook! Penne and Kleybanova played one awesome set of high octane tennis, though Kleybs fell away in the 2nd set.Just had a few in-running bets on the tennis following the 70k method but not the staking plan! And backed the Arse in the tv EPL game on the basis that the thought of backing Pool made me physically ill and backing the draw is for girls. Very happy with the days results.Some intriguing matchups tomorrow, but again no real standout bets pre-match.