Here the world-famous secret tipster – who has made millions from his personal online betting – draws on his decades of industry experience to give you the inside story on how to beat the bookie and bet successfully on tennis, starting with the US Open 2021.
Where Are The Betting Angles In Tennis?
When I started betting on tennis some 30 years ago the easiest way to win was to bet against clay court players who were switching to either hard courts or grass. Back then most clay courters had no clue how to play on other surfaces and against specialist grass players in particular they would look no better than an average club player.
This is less the case now, especially as so many clubs now have multiple kinds of courts to practice on, but I still think the betting market has not quite caught up with how difficult players find it to switch between surfaces. I remember in the first round of Wimbledon 1998 selecting eight players with experience and form on grass playing against clay court specialists and putting them in an accumulator, sevenfolds and sixfolds for a total stake of £700.
Seven of the eight won and the bet returned over £130,000 and had Oliver Rochus won his match it would have hit William Hill’s maximum payout of £500,000.
Betting Against Big Players Switching Court’s Surface
I especially like to oppose highly ranked players moving from clay to grass after a long clay court season (so essentially from February to June). In the pre-Wimbledon grass tournaments you will often be able to bet a grass specialist who is ranked somewhere between 50 and 150 in the world at odds against (i.e. odds of more than 2.00) playing against a clay court specialist who is ranked between 20 and 50 in the world.
The best tennis bettors I know keep very detailed notes of how well players handle each surface and how long it takes them to get up to speed when they switch between surfaces.
Travelling Can Affect Tennis Players’ Performance
Another angle I really like in tennis betting is to keep an eye on the travel schedule of players. It is easy to forget that players are humans and suffer from jetlag or difficulty sleeping in strange hotel rooms.
Let’s say that a player has made the quarter finals of a tournament in Argentina and also made the final of the doubles and so has played perhaps 10 matches over two weeks and had a final on a Saturday afternoon.
They are then scheduled to play at the following week’s tournament in Miami and unluckily they have been drawn to play on the Monday morning. You can imagine what kind of travel schedule they will have had to get to Miami – perhaps if they got lucky they got an overnight flight on the Saturday and then had a little time to sleep on arrival.
More likely they travelled all day on Sunday, arrived in their hotel around midnight totally exhausted and got a restless night’s sleep before playing on Monday morning with barely a chance to practice.
A Top Tennis Betting Tip Is To Look At Players Schedules
These are the sort of situations the market finds it very hard to price but if they are playing against someone who is fully rested this is where I love to oppose the tired player. It is hard work to keep up with the schedules and to spot these situations but the work is worth it as it often throws up betting opportunities.
Betting On Tennis Grand Slams
In the Grand Slams bookmakers offer odds on the correct score in the first set of most games and I often find that they make a really basic error here.
Some players really love to serve first and some really like to receive first. Most players don’t care either way but for those who have a preference it means that the correct score is far easier to predict. Basically, if a player opts to serve first and they are favourite to win the match then they are far more likely to win 6-3 than anything else (and then 7-5 or 6-1 are the next most likely outcomes).
Find Player’s Preference On Serving Or Receiving First
Whereas if the favourite is likely to receive first then they are most likely to win 6-4 (and then 6-2 or 6-0). Strangely the bookmakers don’t seem to have really worked this out and so you can often find matches where you know the preferences of the players (you want a match where the player always takes the serve versus someone who always opts to receive).
An example of this in the US Open this year was Ernesto Escobedo playing against Pablo Cuevas – Cuevas is a clay courter who always opts to receive while Escobedo opts to serve first more than 90 per cent of the time.
Escobedo was 1.57 (4/7) to win the match so I was pleased to be able to bet Escobedo at 5.50 (9/2) to win the first set 6-3 and at 8.00 (7/1) to win 6-1. Escobedo won comfortably 6-1 and I do think the bookies had just got their prices wrong.
Betting on the Underdog
My last thought for today on tennis betting is that in women’s finals I always like to back the underdog, especially if they are playing a big ‘star name’. Essentially my logic is that if a player has made the final then they are in excellent form.
Yet you can often take odds of 3.50 (5/2) or better on the underdog because the gap in world ranking between the two players is so great. I obviously like to pick and choose my situations and alter my staking depending on the match ups but over the years I have always made it a rule to assume I am betting the underdog in the final and then find a reason why I might not (for example if the underdog is carrying an injury or has a history of not being able to deal with the pressure of playing in a final).
I have personally found over the years that this is a profitable strategy.
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