THE VESNINA TRADE
This is one
of my favourite trades and works especially well in the WTA. I have used it a
great deal but didn’t have a name for it until Elena Vesnina earnt me a
significant amount of money against Monica Niculescu in April 2013 from it,
coming back twice from double break deficits in the first and second sets. I
could have also named it after Li Na, for her propensity to throw away dominant
leads in sets.
The premise of this
trade is that you lay a bad server that is a double break up in either the
first or second set of the match, as soon as the double break has been
obtained.
The reason why I
like the trade so much is that the risk is incredibly minimal. If you lay a
player at a scoreline like 4-0 up in a set the market perceives it’s almost a
given that the player will win the set. Only if the player wins the set 6-0 do
you have more than the tiniest of losses. Even if the scoreline goes from 4-0
to 6-2, you often find that you incur no more than a 5 tick loss, and sometimes
you may even gain a small profit if the player losing 4-0 shows themselves to
be competitive for the rest of the set.
Of course, winning
the set is not easy from 4-0 down. However - getting a break back is much
easier. Many players tend to take their foot off the gas when leading by a
double break in a set, getting a little complacent. Naturally, some players
also when losing, consider the double break down situation a lost cause but
these tend to be the same players that aren’t good when a set down either, so
we can work out who these players are fairly easily.
What I tend to do
is when one break back is obtained, I clear my liability. So I will have £0
profit/loss on the player leading (now by a single break) and all my profit on
the player a break down. If they then hold serve I might drip a little profit
over to the player leading, depending on my stats. If the double break back is
lost, and the set goes back on serve, we are in for a huge result as we can
then equalise our significant profit across both players.
A superb recent example of this was the match in Stuttgart in April
2013 between Petra Kvitova and Annika Beck. I remember this match because it
was my record for a single break back in this trade – 38 ticks.
Kvitova started at
around 1.25, and found herself a double break down at 4-1, on Beck’s serve in
the first set. I can’t remember the exact prices, but she would have not been
too far off 2.00 at this point.
Winning this match
would be by far Beck’s biggest win in tennis. Not only that, she has a very
weak serve. With Kvitova being above average on return stats, it was clear that
unless something very unlikely happened, Kvitova would be able to create a lot
of pressure on
Beck’s serve.
Indeed, Kvitova had a break point on Beck’s serve in the previous service game.
You may recall
earlier I said to be wary of backing favourites when losing. That still stands,
however, with so much sting taken out of the price, compared to the starting
price, I had so little to lose. Furthermore, with the market support clearly
going to be on the big name player, Kvitova, should she get back into this
match I was going to be in a great situation.
Therefore I backed
Kvitova at around evens, and she broke Beck for *2-4. Now she only trailed by a
single break – and I cleared my liability by laying at 38 ticks below my back
price. All my profit was now on Kvitova, and I was prepared to leave it like that
until either she lost the set (I would still be in profit if that happened) or
she got the set back on serve. And that was exactly what happened. She held and
then broke Beck again to get the scores level at 4-4. With momentum clearly in
Kvitova’s favour, and the scoreboard level, Kvitova’s price decreased to around
the starting price, and I levelled my profit by laying at around 1.30.
I managed
to make huge profit incurring very little risk. If Kvitova lost the set, my
loss would have been minimal, compared to the potential profit that would be
won even if she got a single break back.
You might be
reading this thinking that players hardly ever come back from a double break. I
decided to sample months of data and the following statistics illustrate that
they do.
When a bad server
(under 74% projected hold) was a double break up in the ATP they were broken
back at least once 26.7% of the time. The double break was lost 6.8% of the
time.
When a bad server
(under 60% projected hold) was a double break up in the WTA they were broken
back at least once 49.8% of the time. The double break was lost 14.8% of the
time.
From these
statistics, we can see that in the WTA we make profit almost half the time, and
when we do our profit is significantly higher than the minimal risk we incur.
Even in the ATP, as long as our potential profit is about four times higher
than our minimal risk (it usually is) we can also use this strategy profitably.
Another way we can
use this trade is to reduce our average lay position, in an attempt to trade
out of a bad position. The hypothetical example below illustrates this:-
We decide to lay a bad server at *2-0 at
1.50 for £100 stake (£50 liability).
Unfortunately the
trade goes against us and we find ourselves in a bad spot at *4-0 down with the
player trading now at 1.20.
If we now lay the
same player again at 1.20 for £100 stake we add £20 liability to our position.
At this point our liability is £70 and our potential profit is £200.
If we divide £70 by £200 we get 0.35 – so our average lay price is now 1.35
instead of the 1.50 we originally laid at.
So – as long as the player now trades at 1.35 or higher we can
eradicate our loss, should we decide to do so – instead of the 1.50 that we had
to get back up to previously. A break back at this point would definitely push
the price over 1.35, and our position back into profit.
I will discuss the
‘averaging down’ technique more in the chapter ‘Dealing with losing positions’.
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