Diary

A busy week. It’s been the second week of the US Open plus we had an ATP clay tournament in Austria and a WTA tournament in Turkey. My top pick for the outright winners market was for Jennifer Brady to reach the semi finals. She did make it that far and took Osaka to 3 sets. I had also said that Osaka was the only person with a solid chance of taking the title. I wish I had backed my own predictions but I don’t bother with the outright winner market. I had Azarenka going out in the second round after her Cincinnati title win the week before.

From tomorrow groups of more than 6 people are not allowed. The increase in cases is exponential but so far isn’t translating into deaths. For some reason the change in the rules wasn’t put in place immediately. I have heard a few people saying that they were going to have huge parties this weekend. I would have expected them on Friday and Saturday night but things were surprisingly quiet. To be fair the main party house ( they are actually 3 houses who class themselves as 1 household) have been very quiet for a couple of weeks. I did hear that there had been a lot of complaints. The prison officers house has taken over as Party Central. They even put up a couple of large shed type structures where they can all pile in if the weather is bad. They have had friends round the last 2 nights but the music and their voices were kept extremely low. That makes no sense unless they too have been warned. I could only hear their parties when I walked past with the dogs.

We had the grandkids all day yesterday. Eight hours! We love them to bits but it’s nice when mum and dad collect them. They are 3 and 6. Ella is the eldest. She was a little bugger for a while a couple of years ago but is great kid. Very smart. Quite cheeky but in a funny way. A while ago we were playing and smelled something. I asked her if she had farted. Without any hesitation she replied, “No Granddad it’s your breath!”. The little sod was only 4!

Ivy can be great as long as she is getting her own way. If she isn’t she starts crying. I noticed when she does it there are no tears. She has learned that she gets her own way if she stropps. Her mum lets her get away with murder and Ivy plays her like a fiddle. So obviously she tries it with other people. Grandma is a bit of a soft touch too but “Daddad” isn’t playing that shit. Sue had a hairdressers appointment just after lunch. Very convenient! Five minutes after she had left Ivy climbed onto my lap, stuck her face in front of mine and started crying. She was saying something but I couldn’t tell what it was through all the wailing. I sad to Ella that I couldn’t tell what Ivy was saying. Ella said that she was saying she was hungry. I asked Ivy if she was hungry. With her bottom lip sticking out she nodded. I asked her if it hurt. She looked a bit puzzled and shook her head.

Well stop crying then!

Instant silence.

Later in the day we were all in the garden. Ivy discovered that one of the plastic chairs made an annoying noise if she rocked it back and against the shed. I asked her to stop. She carried on banging. Ivy, I’ve asked you to stop. No response. I calmly took the chair from her and put it back where we keep them. Ivy stropped. BIG strop. I walked up to her, bent down so I was on her level and quietly said to her that when Granddad says to stop doing something, you STOP.

The volume of the strop increased. Ivy, did you hurt yourself? She sulkily shook her head.

Well stop crying then!

Instant silence.

I didn’t get a hug when her mum came to pick them up but she’ll get over it.

I traded the US Open final last night. I was favouring Osaka. Azarenka started quickly. VERY quickly. She seemed to be a little over psyched. She was marching around between points. In fact she was doing everything between points quickly and was playing at 200 mph. It was working well for her. She hardly made any errors in the set. Hardly missed any first serves and Osaka didn’t get many chances. She was making a lot of “unforced” errors but it was Azarenka that was forcing her to take risks. I had backed Osaka when she went 2-0 down. She did hold her next service game but that was the only game she won in the set.

I felt that Azarenka was so pumped that if she started to make a few more mistakes that she may struggle to adjust. She was marching round as if on drugs ( obviously she wasn’t! ) and I thought that if things started to go against her she wouldn’t be able to slow her brain down and things could go against her quickly.

At the start of the second set she was immediately missing 1st serves. She still held but Osaka took her to 30-30. In the next game Osaka was broken again. When a player is a set and a break ahead it is an automatic lay for me. Their level frequently drops in that situation. I added to my position on Osaka. I had also laid Azarenka after the set. Azarenka started to make a few more mistakes and that allowed Osaka to get into the match. Azarenka only held her serve 1 more time in the set.

The momentum was with Osaka. She took a 4-1 lead in the third set and looked to be cruising to the title. When Azarenka served at 1-4 Osaka had 4 break points but Azarenka held and then broke the Osaka serve. Another break for Osaka gave her the chance to serve for the title which she did fairly comfortably. That was a great end to a long day!

Much quieter today. Sue’s at work, the housework’s done and the dogs have had their first walk. I don’t expect the mens final to be as entertaining but I’ll be watching it. I’m wanting a much better price on Thiem before I get involved.

Good luck.

 

It has been an interesting week. I turned 52 on Tuesday. I spent a big chunk of the day researching tennis matches, visiting our daughter and grand kids and taking calls from relatives. That is a few too many distractions and I traded just 1 match.

The opening week of the US Open has not been the easiest. Fewer 3 setters in the women’s draw than we normally expect to see. That has been offset by more long matches in the Men’s tournament. You can expect upsets in the slams and we have had a few although not as many as normal. Muguruza had played fairly well in the first round but then lost to Pironkova in straight sets. Pironkova is playing her first tournament sine July 2017! Murray looked like he was going out in straight sets to Nishioka on Tuesday before he found some inspiration and fought back to win in 5.

Garcia seems to be over her confidence issues and beat top seed Pliskova in straight sets. Raonic went out to Pospisil on Thursday. I had Raonic down to reach the semis. Dimitrov lost again to Fucsovics. This time in 5 sets. Brengle disposed of a disappointing Yastremska and Cirstea beat Konta who I also expected to have a good tournament.

We had a nice price on Goffin to beat Krajinovic and he won in straight sets. Dan Evans went out in 4 sets in his delayed match with Moutet. Osaka had a tough match last night against Kostyuk and in the end was helped out by Kostyuk’s injury.

Last night saw what must be the biggest choke of the tournament and is possibly the biggest choke of the year. Tsitsipas was 2 sets to 1 up on Coric. In the fourth set Tsitsipas was 5-1, 40-0 up. He blew 6 match points and lost the set 5-7. Coric took the match in the 5th set tie break.

I have been trading since 2008 and wrote the first version of the Trading Guide in 2009. I have been asked pretty much every question that you can think of. I have seen almost everything that you would expect to see as a trading product vendor. Every year I get a handful of people who buy the Guide only for me to discover when setting up their access that they already bought it. Some bought it 10 years ago. Occasionally they bought it the same year! That’s not a massive shock. Anyone who has read the blog for a while knows that I am always messing about with or tweaking the sites so people visiting the sales site for the first time in a year or more will be seeing a very different looking page.

So not much surprises me. However something that happened late last night was a first. Someone signed up for the Trading Guide at the start of the week. Two or 3 days later they contacted Paypal and requested a refund. That’s not the surprise. I get very few refund requests apart from the people who sign up twice. This person clicked on the reason for the refund request as “Item not as described”.

As the vendor I get an email saying that someone has requested a refund. I then have 3 options. I can send them a message. I can send them a refund. I can hand it over to Paypal to decide. I sent a message. I pointed out that the “item” is EXACTLY as described and that I have been selling it for over a decade with very few complaints that it isn’t as described. I asked for more details on why they claimed that it was not as I had described it.

The Trading Guide and the service mean a hell of a lot to me. Blood, sweat AND tears have gone into it. It takes up a lot of my time and mental energy on top of trading the matches. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy almost every minute of it but if you criticise my service my reaction is a bit like a parent whose 11 year old kid is being poked with a stick and is being told how ugly he is.

Anyway the reply that came back was a bit thin especially when it was made 3 days after purchasing it. However I felt that if they wanted to bail after 2 or 3 days then they probably weren’t going to put the effort in that’s required. I sent the refund.

Then last night, just before I took the dogs out, they signed up again! If this was you don’t worry. I won’t be naming you and I’m sure you will understand why I was surprised. I thought at first that it wasn’t the same person. Just a similar name. Except that it is quite an unusual name. Then I thought maybe my phone was playing up. Occasionally it shows me notifications of emails that I received many days go. I logged into Paypal to confirm it was a new payment and it was. I haven’t heard anything from them so far today but if it was you I’d love to know what brought about such a rapid change of heart.

I’m going to have a chill for a few hours until the matches start. I have the house to myself.

Have a good weekend.