Diary

It has been a quiet week as the second week of grand slams often are. There have been some strange results in the French Open. Mainly in the women’s tournament but the men’s tournament has also seem some strange matches. Apart from the obvious reasons of the Corona Virus keeping players away from competitive matches for 4 to 5 months and the fact that there are a fraction of the usual number of spectators I think one of the main reasons has been the playing conditions. Tennis players don’t play in cold conditions. The outdoor tournaments follow the sun around the globe. They are always played in summer. That’s why in January the tour is in Australia and New Zealand and European events such as Wimbledon and the French Open take place during Europe’s summer. The players don’t have any tactics for dealing with playing when cold other than having more layers on. Muscles take longer to get warmed up and also just the fact that people generally don’t like being cold has resulted in some unexpected performances.

I had a conversation with my sister on WhatsApp about my Nephew’s birthday present. She was at work so it wasn’t a long conversation but we talked a bit about the lockdown. She lives in Wigan and they seem to have extra measures in place. She was saying that people around her were just refusing to wear masks so she was avoiding going to shops. She also said that her netball matches had not restarted and her partner’s rugby matches weren’t happening. The kids’ football and gymnastics had extra safety measures in place.

She asked me how I was managing with no tennis being played. The family don’t talk about what I do. I get the feeling they think it is something dodgy and at best is just gambling. All she seemed to know was that my job was something to do with predicting tennis match results. I told her that the tennis had returned in August and I had been very busy since. She was surprised that the tennis was back when the sports that she knows more about weren’t happening.

“Oh so you have been making tennis results up then? Or do you manage to fluke one occasionally?”

“I get most of them right. I’m a legend!”

“Ha! So if I google tennis prediction flukey legend, you will come up?”

“LOL probably!”

She went quiet for a bit and I wondered if she WAS googling it. I googled it myself and I was nowhere to be seen but she must have used another similar search term. Then…

“OMG!! Bettinggods.com An interview with Paul Shires!! I thought you were joking. I can’t open the links in it as I’m at work.”

She must have tried some other searches.

“Wow you’re all over the place! I had no idea”

We chatted about what I actually do. It was nice to talk to someone close about building the business up and some of the success I have achieved. I give myself a hard time if I get something wrong but also give myself a pat on the back when I get it right. I am extremely proud of what I have built up and getting pretty much zero acknowledgement from my loved ones has been hard at times.

I finally got the second and third matches posted on Youtube from the 3 match trading session from WTA Strasbourg. That means I have very little to do today. I’ll be trading the French Open Women’s final at 2 pm.

I’ll try to take it easy today. Sue is at work and we have the grand kids all day tomorrow so there won’t be much relaxing until they go home!

Have a great weekend!

 

The first week of the French Open has been a busy one. I spent most of the day on Saturday researching Sunday’s matches and writing the trading email. As I said in the last diary post I had double booked myself on Sunday. We were looking after the grandkids all day. Normally during the first Sunday of the French Open I would be writing Monday’s trading email while I’m trading. As I couldn’t do that this year I started on the email at around 6pm when the kids had gone home. It was a late night but I managed to get enough done that I could finish the rest on Monday morning. That’s been the pattern of the last few days really.

Tuesday and Wednesday were complicated further by us having appliances delivered. Tuesday was new cooker day. Thankfully they came just after 9 which helped though they seemed to take a while to get finished. On Wednesday the new washing machine was delivered. That wasn’t until 3 pm so I was having to stay out of matches as I didn’t want to be stuck in a trade when they turned up.

Today was the first day that I had not been working late the night before. I got up at 6:30 and had plenty of time to download the matches from the Oncourt software, put them in order and get the prices from Betfair. It was a busy morning but its a routine I do every day and there was nothing out of the ordinary. I only managed to trade one match which was the Pliskova v Ostapenko one. Pliskova started slowly and was having real issues on serve but so was Ostapenko. I laid Ostapenko fairly heavily at prices down to 1.48 and managed to get a decent sized free bet on Pliskova. I could have hedged for just under £300 but figured she would sort herself out so left it at that. I had left about £25 on Ostapenko. No real reason for that other than I had used my pre set stake buttons to lay off the liability and it had left me with that small green on her.

That has been the only trade o the day. I finished the remaining matches on the trading email and had some lunch. It was around 1:30 pm. I was ready for a break and some fresh air so I took the dogs down to the field. When we got down there it was empty. At that time of day we have the field to ourselves 9 days out of 10. The dog were having a great run around and there are lots of trees and bushes to investigate. We usually just do a lap of the field. That means I pretty much do a lap and they move with me. We were nearly back to the gate at the top of the field and I was getting ready to leave. I never use my phone when I am out with the dogs other than if someone signs up for the service. As I got to the gate the notification came through from Paypal. I thought I would set the guy’s access up rather than wait the 10 minutes until we were back at home.

The dogs had wandered off a short way and were just out of sight. I hadn’t seen someone walk down the path that runs along side the field. I heard the heavy metal gate open and looked up. There was a guy with 2 dogs. Other dogs aren’t an issue. Except these where German Shepherds. Molly was attacked by a Shepherd 2 or 3 years ago. She was attacked twice by the same dog. She seems to have got over it but Charlie hasn’t. He was the one who fought the Shepherd off and ever since then he hates all Shepherds.

To make matters worse this guy had the dogs on flexi leads. Those leads that extend. If you ever see someone with a big dog on a flexi lead there is a really good chance that have not got a fucking clue what they are doing. The guy was probably in his sixties. He looked like one of those old guys who spends half the year in Spain. Very deeply tanned, shorts, anorak, sandals and sunglasses.

Molly had heard the gate open and came running up. She ran towards the dogs to greet them. I told her to stay away and she stopped. Then this twat let his dogs extend the leads. Both his dogs were on top of her and she was crying out. I yelled at the guy to shorten his leads. I told him to get his dogs away from mine.

Pretty much all of the following was shouted:

“Well at least MY dogs are on a lead. Your dog came up to mine.”

“Are you fucking stupid? Just get your dogs away from her and give me some space so I can get them out of here.”

By this time Charlie had run up and piled in to help Molly.

“See? Its YOUR dogs being aggressive not mine!”

“HE’S protecting HER! Just take your dogs away from the gate. I’m trying to leave!”

“No you’re not! Your dogs were over there and You were on your PHONE!”

“JESUS CHRIST! Stop talking and fucking move your dogs away”

“My dogs can go where they like. You should have your dogs on a lead if they’re aggressive”

While he’s being a cunt I’ve shoved his dogs away and grabbed Charlie’s collar. Molly was already standing by the gate. I can’t remember what he was shouting at me but it was more bullshit.

“Are you actually fucking retarded?? Should you be out on your own? Do you want me to call your carer? I mean it looks like you’ve shit yourself!”

He actually put his fists up and moved towards me. While he’s moving towards me he is pulling his dogs towards mine again. His dogs were quite a bit bigger than mine and my two aren’t exactly small.

“Oh you’re gonna hit me? What a fucking genius you are. You’re putting my dogs in danger. MOVE AWAY!”

He finally got the message. As he moved away he shouted:

“You need to calm down you miserable old bastard!”

I put the dogs leads on and left. I was angry for several reasons. Mainly because you don’t want to see your dogs get hurt. Molly was ok other than a few nips. Charlie was fine. There was no need for there to be an issue. Molly had stopped approaching them on command before he allowed his leads to extend around 20 feet. I was also angry that I had let him get to me. The only time I get angry these days is if my family or my dogs are put in danger. This idiot was just frustrating. He wanted to argue rather than just shorten the leads and let us leave.

By the time I got home I had calmed down a bit but wasn’t in the right frame of mind to trade.

That’s me done for the day!