Posts Tagged federer
Conclusions from a busy weekend
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 16th, 2010
Blackpool got off to a flyer but are still my favourites for a return to the Championship. No spending power, no ground, no way to attract premiership talent. I think 1.20 was skinny and difficult to find value for relegation but if the price drifts a bit it will be more interesting. I remember, eons ago, Millwall getting off to a flyer in the old division one and they topped the table for a while but were still relegated. I will be keep tabs on Blackpool.
Liverpool’s match against Arsenal was interesting and it played out pretty much as expected. Liverpool didn’t want to lose and neither did Arsenal. But Arsenal were lucky in the end to get the point. I still don’t think that Liverpool are title challengers.
Andy Murray did a fantastic job in defeating Nadal and Federer on his way to the title in Toronto. You shouldn’t read too much emphasis on this title. Most elite athletes will focus on key objectives. Nadal will be very focused on the US open in this tournament will have been a prep for that but not the real deal. Both Nadal and Federer will not be too disappointed at losing. But an excellent win nonetheless for Murray given his path to the title.
I got some kudos at the weekend for correctly predicting the result and score from Portsmouth vs Reading match. The local newspaper asked me to do a write up. So I guess I will be asked again until my luck runs out!
What a start!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on June 22nd, 2010
Wimbledon got off to an amazing start with a near shock elinimation of Federer. In the last ten years there have been lots of seeds falling early, but never the top seed. Reading from the year 2000 we had ranked players going out in the first round as follows. 7,16,9,2,12,11,6,22,4 and 17. Basically, anything is worth a lay. OK the odds at the off are probably an accurate representation of true chance of winning, but from there anything can happen in the match. You can rack up specutacular profits if an outsider comes into contention, for little risk. It is always worth a try.
I have to say though, I was suprised to see just how short his odds were when you consider that Falla almost took the first set off him at the French Open. It seems people have very short memories. Unfortunatley I was unable to trade yesterday afternoon and I am not well today so my week is really going to start tomorrow.
Incidentally Tennis Trader would have given you several excellent exit points in the Federer match yesterday.
Tennis trading lessons
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 28th, 2010
A couple of neat lessons were served up by the Tennis yesterday and both showed that statistics don’t always give you the key to actually understanding what is going on in the underlying market.
First we had the Federer match. Struggling with a vibrant opponent and having lost 13 games in a row you could have counted Federer out for the count, but a revealing post match interview revealed what was going through his head at 2-6 1-3 down. Federer commented on how the sun was bothering him and how he couldn’t wait till it had cleared the court. He also, accidentally, revealed how he timed his ‘comfort break’ to allow him a chance to regain his thoughts and break the stride of his opponent. Unfortunately I was not around for this match so I missed this opportunity but it is amazing how a break in play can change things around.
Later than morning / evening we then had Djokovic seemingly in total control of a match only to get beaten from odds of 1.12. The explanation, Djokovic suddenly felt ill in the middle of the match. At the end of one energetic rally Djokovic bent over double at the end and looked up to his trainer. A few points later he was also off for a ‘comfort break’. He never managed to recover from feeling ill and it was an easy win for Tsonga in the end. I’ve captured the movement in odds from the moment he started to feel ill. Just goes to show it’s not only stats you should look out for in Tennis matches.
Federer crashes out
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 15th, 2009
With Nadal and Federer losing at the Montreal Masters, Andy Murray now has a great chance to pop up one place in the rankings to world number two.
Federer’s match was quite remarkable being two breaks up and 5-1 up in the final set, but still losing. Scott did a good post on the market on his blog. At 5-1 up in the final set I calculated his odds at 99.7% or basically 1.00, so no particular value at 1.01 to lay but Tsonga was priced at 370 on my spreadsheet. He was available to back at 500′s. Hindsight it a wonderful thing isn’t it! Even taking into account the price that still only represented a 0.3% chance of winning.
Interestingly, holding serve reduced those odds to 41, the break 32, another hold to 3.57. Just shows you that when a Tennis match swings it often does so in spectacular fashion.
Classic final underway?
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on February 1st, 2009
Odds on Federer after losing the first set
Currently watching some great tennis this morning at the Aussie open in Melbourne. I’d be happy to hit just one of these shots when I play tennis, let alone on each stroke. It’s generating some great trading opportunities as well. Unfortunately I have promised to take the kids swimming so I am likely to miss out.
As an example, when Nadal broke Federer in the first set the price moved out a fair bit, but this also left Nadal to serve for the set. He successfully served out this game. The move took the odds from 1.60 to 2.50 a move of 90 ticks. The logic on this type of trade was pretty easy to understand. If Federer won his game the odds would move in a little. If he lost, Nadal would serve for the set and you would get a significant move.
Over the last few years I have focused more and more on modelling Tennis and finally cracked all the detail last year. This makes it much easier to pinpoint key points when you can look ahead and see the odds and understand where the low risk trades are. But when you think about it, most of the areas are quite obvious. The only disadvantage you have without all the data is you may not understand just how much the odds are likely to move.