Trading tennis

24th April 2014 – Betcast interview and today’s trading previews.

Dave at Betcast interviewed me last week. You can listen to that interview HERE

 

We had some very odd results yesterday. Ferrer lost in straight sets on clay to Gabashvili! In Spain!

Fognini is clearly still in sulk mode as he failed to win a game against Giraldo before he retired at 0-6, 0-4.

Kvitova bombed out in straight sets although that isn’t so much of a surprise these days!

Even Nadal only scraped through his match with Ramos 7-6, 6-4.

 

ATP Bucharest, 11:30Haase has yet to take a set from Youzhny in 5 attempts. Youzhny won their most recent meeting which was in the final of Gstaad in July.

Haase had an excellent clay season last year but his more recent form has been very poor. Before this week he had four first round losses in his last four clay events. All were as favourite.

Youzhny isn’t doing much better with 3 withdrawals and one retirement already in 2014. There were rumours before his first round match with Seppi in Monte Carlo that he was still carrying an injury. He didn’t play too badly if that was the case but didn’t take his chances.

Seppi had never beaten Youzhny before. If Haase is going to get his first win over the Russian then this is his best hope. I’ll lay Youzhny below 1.30 .

Update: Youzhny broke straight away to give us our lay price and then haase controlled the match.

Haase won 6-3, 6-3.

 

 

WTA Marakech, 13:00Oprandi has beaten Vidagany in both their previous matches.  Both were on clay but they haven’t played for almost 4 years.

Vidagany plays on the ITF circuit and has played just one main tour, main draw match in the past 12 months. That was against Schiavone in the first round this week. She won surprisingly easily in straight sets. Schiavone was defending champion and whilst she hasn’t won many this season she has been playing reasonable tennis.

Oprandi reached the quarter finals in Bogota and reached the same stage in her last two ITF clay tournaments. She struggled in her opening set against Grymalska in the first round but came through in 3 sets.

As Oprandi is more or less bandage-less right now I have to favour her. I think Vidagany’s win over Schiavone was more down to the Italian being so bad almost anyone would have beaten her.

Oprandi starts at 1.64 but I will wait a game or two to see how they start the match. Oprandi at 1.80 or better feels like a good entry unless she shows poor form early in the set.

Update Oprandi won 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.

 

Barcelona, 17:00Thiem has taken a couple of decent scalps already this week. Today he is up against an excellent clay courter in Giraldo.

Giraldo had a virtual bye through the last round as the Fognini sulk rumbled on. That may not have helped Giraldo other than by helping save some energy.

Thiem’s 3 setter with Granollers will have sharpened his game nicely for this one.

I rate both these players highly for different reasons. Giraldo has proved himself to be an excellent player on clay and Thiem is the young player I picked out as having the best chance of becoming a top player. His game is maturing well.

This is Thiem’s fifth match as he had to come through the qualifying rounds. He is young so will recover quickly but clay can really take it out of you.

I am going with Giraldo’s clay experience over Thiem’s youth and energy.

They start around evens.

Update: A great effort by Thiem but that Giraldo experience proved the deciding factor. Thiem was a break up in the third set but Giraldo won 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.

 

 

   
Tennis Trading Course

24th April 2014 – Betcast interview and today’s trading previews. Read More »

Transition from part time to full time trading….

The plan to be full time by the end of this year is nicely on track.

I recently had some hours cut at work. This meant that  I was around £90 down each week. Its been easy enough to made that up with the trading and finishing work at 3 rather than 5 has also been a blessing in disguise.

I noticed straight away that as soon as I HAD to make the 90 quid that I was thinking about the trades differently. I don’t tend to take many risks anyway but I found that as soon as the hedge figure reached £25 or £30 I was taking it whereas before I would think that I ought to leave it a little longer to get another tenner at least. Obviously there are matches where  everything goes smoothly. You get in at just the right time with the appropriate stake. The match goes more or less exactly as you anticipated and you can often find yourself with a 3 figure green with little stress. But I’m talking about the bread-and-butter trades. With little risk you can take anything from £10 to £30 and move on. I’m hitting the hedge much more readily.

Another thing I have been quicker to do is to take  the red hedge.  Sometimes I would wait a little too long to get out of a trade knowing that I have a strategy that is well practiced to manage any switch of sides and also a maximum loss figure if the trade looks like going beyond my control. Often now I will get out at the first hint of danger. Ofcourse it will often happen that the perceived dangers don’t become reality and you have given back any green you may have had up to that point for no reason. The point is that I am dealing with smaller red figures which reduces the stress levels that I imagine full time trading bring.

Not having the 9 to 5, or the 7 to 3 in my case, is bound to ease up some time pressure. At the moment I have the full time job, run a forum and chatroom and trade a lot. Also having around 600 members of TradeSharkTennis who have many many questions takes up a lot of time  ( not complaining as that was one of the main reasons for setting it up!).

I try to reply to emails as quickly as I can which naturally gets harder as member numbers increase. Time management has always been good since my days in retail management but often my replies aren’t as in depth as I  would like. I feel bad if I don’t get to an email in time to give the advice requested even over the past few difficult days where family matters have rightly taken priority.

Which leads on to another point. How often is it nice to go to work to get away from issues at home? I suppose that depends on how many issues you get at home and what you do for a job! They are usually caused by people outside my immediate family but we seem to move from one “crisis” to another. If I am at work I usually won’t be dragged into it until I get home but what if I am just upstairs?

Since having reduced hours at work I have explained to my wife and daughter that we had to treat the trading as my second job. I can be interrupted in real emergencies. Is it an emergency that one of the cat’s has crapped on the sofa? Err no.   Is it an emergency that my daughter’s hair dryer doesn’t work and her boyfriend is coming for her in 10 minutes? Errr go away I’m at work……..No you’re not and I can’t go out with wet hair……..Close the door………You never help me……….where did I put that Uzi……..Damn! Break of serve!

I think I just need to keep my feet on the ground which is something i don’t have a problem with. I’ll set a minimum average target for the day ( around £50 ) and concentrate on reaching that first. Whether I withdraw money daily or weeky I haven’t decided but I am favouring daily.

I’m trying to make the transistion as stress free as possible by using this year to build up some back up living expenses. The theory being that I want to be able to think about my trading pretty much as I do now. You don’t need any extra immediate pressure.

I’ll try to keep you updated of how things are going as regards turning full time. I know the forum and chatroom will be very helpful in keeping me sane (ish )

   

Tennis Trading Course

Transition from part time to full time trading…. Read More »

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