Final Thoughts

In case you’re wondering, I’m not thinking of giving up the experiment yet. It may be painfully slow progress at the minute, but eventually things will pick up. No, I’m talking about the final of the men’s Australian Open.

The women’s went pretty much as expected; although my theory of the pattern repeating were proved unsurprisingly wrong; with Serena winning in straight sets. Next, we have the main event, with Federer playing Nadal, in what most would admit is an unexpected final.

I’ll be making sure I’m awake to watch what is likely to be the last pairing of this pair in a major final, before (most likely) Federer retires.

Lay Federer 3-0 at 1.1624

I see this being a close affair, with Nadal coming out on top. Nadal leads the head to head 23-11, with the Spaniard leading 8-2 on hard courts.

Update – Federer wins 3-2 New Bank £1093.66

 

 

Patterns

Another peculiarity of betting I’ve noticed over the years, is the number of patterns that tend to crop up in certain situations. I’ve never made any calculations that take these patterns into account, but maybe I should?

One that’s stuck with me the most for the last couple of years is the fact that in tennis, it regularly happens that one player will win a close set on a tie breaker, but in the very next set they will easily be beaten 6-1. The reverse is often true too. Like I said, I’ve never worked out what the true odds of this should be, but I’m sure bookies haven’t taken it into account when compiling odds ‘in play’; maybe it’s something I should look into to work on my edge.

Anyway, the reason for mentioning this is that during my research for a potential bet tonight, I noticed an interesting (recent)pattern in the Williams sisters match up.

The hard hitting sisters match up for the 28th time, in tomorrow’s Australian Open Final (Serena leads 8-3 in finals 16-11 overall) and all the hype is around Serena making it 7 AO wins; Venus has been given little chance.

While I don’t disagree with this, I noticed that in the last 12 meetings, Serena has won twice but followed that up with a loss against her older sister. Well tomorrow happens to be the 13th match in this run, and Serena has won the previous 2; could this be an omen?

While I don’t really believe in this type of thing, I can’t help but have a cheeky fun bet on Venus to win 2 sets to 1 (odds of 8.00) which has come in 3 out of 4 times in that sequence.

I’ll likely be wrong, but there’s no way you’ll get me taking 1.20 on a Serena win.

Federer

Semi finals of the Oz open. Should be an interesting match-up.

Lay Wawrinka 3-0 v Federer at 1.1284

I can’t see anything but a Federer win here, so a 3-0 win for Wawrinka looks very unlikely. The Fed has an 18-3 record against Stan, so I’m tempted to go for the straight win at the odds, 1.67; but the aim is to be conservative and go for the ‘safe bets’. Come on Rog!

Update – Federer wins 3-2 New bank – £1070.96

Stan The Man

Didn’t fancy anything on the football today; African Cup of Nations is a bit too hit and miss for me, so I’ll stick to what I know.

Lay a straight sets victory for Tsonga at 8.00 odds

Fancy the former champ to come through here in a close contest. Betting against a straight forward for the Frenchman seems like the sensible bet – £104.29 to win £14.53 after commission.

Update – Stan shows his class to win in 3 New bank – £1057.38

Grigor Dimitrov

Australian open now and I fancy Dimitrov to knock out the man who knocked out Novak Djokovic in the second round.

Back Grigor Dimitrov v Denis Istomin at 1.1365 odds 

This pair have a H2H record of 1-1 with Dimitrov winning the last meeting 6-3 6-3, but I expect the Bulgarian to be fresher and sharper, having played 4 less sets. Dimitrov to win – £102.88 to win £14.04 after commission.

Update – Not as straight forward as I’d expected, but still got the job done. New bank – £1042.86