Five years. Five years have gone by since I first began tennis trading. It feels even longer than that. Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing if I wasn't a trader. Where would I be right now? What country could I be travelling? Would I have found myself a new career that I loved? Or gone back into something I hated? Do I regret the choices I've made? Am I TRULY happy?
There's a rain delay in Kitzbuhel. I have a stinking cold and I'm bored out of my mind, waiting for Andreas fucking Haider-Maurer and friends to play some dirt-ball. Truth is, I don't have to wait (plenty of lady-tennis on later) but I can barely move off the sofa and with a blister the size of a golf ball on my big toe, I'm not stepping outside for a good few days to come (and no, I'm not popping it, you aren't supposed to pop them!). So second-rate dirt-ball trading it is for me this afternoon. Maybe.
Certainly makes you think, boredom, incapacity and free time. I don't actually get that much of it these days, what with my trading and the academy. I'm also still in the early stages of planning my round the world trip, beginning in July 2015. I certainly would never have been able to do that in most other professions. The freedom to just get up and go away whenever I felt like it, for as long as I want. The fact that I can do this and that money is no longer an object to facilitate this, makes me realise that I shouldn't regret the choices I've made. But then, who knows what I could have missed out on in those early formative years of tennis trading, where I was more likely to shove my fist into a wall or spend all night tossing and turning with anxiety than be planning what Latin American nation I was going to spend a month sweating furiously in. But I try not to think about the past and to live in the present, which is pretty damn good right now.
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There is still the future though. What does that have in store for me? Do I really want to keep doing this for much longer? Another year, for sure, but that will be 6 years of full time tennis trading. Do I want to be part of this industry anymore? It's not one I have a love or a passion for, yet it has made me more comfortable and freer than at any stage in my life since I was a child. The super premium charge will also loom on the horizon one day - like the apocalypse and the holy grail all rolled into one. I don't know why I use religious terms when I'm an atheist. It looms on the horizon like a beautiful setting sun, dipping into the ocean - one which will scold you for all eternity with a searing pain the moment you touch it. That's better.
So many questions to answer right now. Head hurts too much for all this. Still pissing it down in Austria. Maybe I'll watch some more The Walking Dead. Not sure if I like it or not but I'm on series 4 now so may as well continue. Jack Sock is a funny name. If your name was Sock, why would you call your kid Jack? Doesn't work. Too many Ks. Those pain killers are kicking in. You know what? Things aren't so bad after all. Roll on Andreas Haider-Maurer!
There's a rain delay in Kitzbuhel. I have a stinking cold and I'm bored out of my mind, waiting for Andreas fucking Haider-Maurer and friends to play some dirt-ball. Truth is, I don't have to wait (plenty of lady-tennis on later) but I can barely move off the sofa and with a blister the size of a golf ball on my big toe, I'm not stepping outside for a good few days to come (and no, I'm not popping it, you aren't supposed to pop them!). So second-rate dirt-ball trading it is for me this afternoon. Maybe.
Certainly makes you think, boredom, incapacity and free time. I don't actually get that much of it these days, what with my trading and the academy. I'm also still in the early stages of planning my round the world trip, beginning in July 2015. I certainly would never have been able to do that in most other professions. The freedom to just get up and go away whenever I felt like it, for as long as I want. The fact that I can do this and that money is no longer an object to facilitate this, makes me realise that I shouldn't regret the choices I've made. But then, who knows what I could have missed out on in those early formative years of tennis trading, where I was more likely to shove my fist into a wall or spend all night tossing and turning with anxiety than be planning what Latin American nation I was going to spend a month sweating furiously in. But I try not to think about the past and to live in the present, which is pretty damn good right now.
Monica Puig
There is still the future though. What does that have in store for me? Do I really want to keep doing this for much longer? Another year, for sure, but that will be 6 years of full time tennis trading. Do I want to be part of this industry anymore? It's not one I have a love or a passion for, yet it has made me more comfortable and freer than at any stage in my life since I was a child. The super premium charge will also loom on the horizon one day - like the apocalypse and the holy grail all rolled into one. I don't know why I use religious terms when I'm an atheist. It looms on the horizon like a beautiful setting sun, dipping into the ocean - one which will scold you for all eternity with a searing pain the moment you touch it. That's better.
So many questions to answer right now. Head hurts too much for all this. Still pissing it down in Austria. Maybe I'll watch some more The Walking Dead. Not sure if I like it or not but I'm on series 4 now so may as well continue. Jack Sock is a funny name. If your name was Sock, why would you call your kid Jack? Doesn't work. Too many Ks. Those pain killers are kicking in. You know what? Things aren't so bad after all. Roll on Andreas Haider-Maurer!