Doing a Wozniacki
I am now fully prepared for the French Open tennis which starts today. Watched some Tennis last week and saw Wozniacki retire, again, through injury. As part of my preparation, I dusted off my fly swatter and started playing Tennis again. On the hottest day of year so far, I thrashed around the count waving my arms at random. It’s nice to play a sport that you want to get involved in on the markets, you often learn lots and get some prompts.
The first set was great and I won it 6-0, ball flying all over the place, opponent run ragged, thoughts of challenging Federer. Second set I was 4-0 up and cruising when I completely fell apart and ended up losing the set on a tie break. It was a nice reminder of the sort of things you should watch out for when trading Tennis. How could I lose from such a dominant position?
Two main reasons, outside of lousy Tennis. First was I’m not as fit as I used to be and probably not as fit as my opponent. I knew this so worked hard to start to get as big an advantage as I could, that worked. I was relying on my opponents psychology working against him after that first set. Unfortunately I am also carrying an injury, my achilles. As I moved through the second set, this started to really nag me along with my fitness and I started to lose my sharpness. The 4-0 lead was flattering as well, as each game was pretty close. It just turned out that I played some good shots at the critical moments. If you would have analysed the points won you, would have seen that I wasn’t really that far ahead. I did the stats when I got home and if you assume we were two evenly matched players, I would have been trading at 1.01. Knowing how I felt, I would have happily laid a few quid against myself!
A silly shot on my serve handed a break to my opponent, he won his serve and suddenly it was 4-2. I pushed to finish the match, but made some errors when going for the winner and lost serve again. It would have been easier just to return the ball and wait for his error, but suddenly is was 4-4. Now psychology was in reverse and despite a rally I was unable to save the set, my opponent had the momentum. With my heel feeling ever more stressed I did a Wozniacki and ‘retired’ at 1-1. Only if the first set is not complete will a market be voided, so on this occasion I would have hacked off a few 1.01 backers! Wozniakci’s retirement last week was quite predictable. If you are about to play in a grand slam the following week, why risk it?
Anyhow, Tennis trading is great fun and thanks to the unique scoring system can provide some great swings, as I hope my anecdotal evidence has proven! Good luck with the French Open!
New balls please
Category: Tennis
