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!
