Best Tennis Betting Tips & Strategies

Tennis may be a highly popular sport on which to have a flutter, but that doesn’t mean that what worked for you with football betting will serve you (if you’ll excuse the pun) just as well on the tennis court.

Tennis, after all, has its own distinctive characteristics – unlike football, for example, games cannot end undecided, which removes the risk of draws and makes it easier to pick a winner. Tennis players are also motivated to finish their games as fast as possible, in stark contrast to the fixed period of time for which football games take place. If you need help with understanding tennis betting and the basics, we have you covered.

So with these and various other factors in mind, what strategies could make all of the difference to your chances of tennis betting success?

Target the ‘win current game’ market

If you are especially interested in in-play tennis betting, keep a close eye on the ‘win current game’ market – also often known as ‘win sixth game’, depending on the number of games that have already been played.

This market gives you the opportunity to make the most of slightly lengthier odds as a set takes place, with favourite players obviously not fancied as strongly to win a game when the player on the opposite side of the net is serving.

While this does bring slightly greater risk, by assessing past statistics, you can determine the game or set in which your targeted player will be most likely to make their move.  

Shop around for the right price

Few sports offer as wide a spread as tennis, so you shouldn’t settle for whatever the first bookmaker presents to you for a given match.

Browse and compare various tennis betting online portals to ensure you always get a price that represents good value – otherwise, just move along to the next opportunity.

Keep track of the previous season

There’s a lot of useful insight to be gained from picking a few players to focus and often bet on, and taking a closer look at how they fared in the previous season – and what implications that could have for your gambling this season.

If, for example, a player did especially well at a given tournament last season, they will have gathered a certain amount of points that they will need to defend this season. So long as there aren’t any other specific issues – such as injuries or personal life problems – you can expect the player to be especially motivated to do well at that tournament this time around.

This factor may be especially significant when the player hovers somewhere between 20 and 50 in the rankings, as their seeding for the Grand Slams may be at risk if they perform poorly at a key tournament where they have points to defend.

Be cautious about the ‘set’ market

While the ‘set’ market is great for tennis betting beginners and those who want to quickly lock in on profits without the intention of waiting for the entire match to unfold, many bettors can be lured into the temptation of trying to guess the exact score... and subsequently losing, badly.

The truth is that while you can definitely get a lot of value out of the ‘set’ market, that’s because it can be very difficult to make the right bet. Even the very best players have lean periods in their matches, where they can find themselves losing a set en route to what may otherwise be a comfortable victory.

To ward off the likelihood of such a slip-up, you should at least try to do some research into which of the big players can be prone to a lack of motivation against lower-ranked players, and therefore end up surrendering sets here and there. 

Focus on specific players beyond the big stars

It’s easy to just bet on the obvious superstars, but of course, you don’t stand to make much money that way.

Instead, it’s well worth picking out a couple of players and keeping a close eye on them throughout the early rounds of a tournament – and then betting on them if they are playing according to your expectations and the price seems right.

Determine which players you can or can’t ‘read’

Sometimes, you’ll find that certain players consistently cost you, even when you thought you had them sussed.

In this situation, it might be best to just draw a line through their name and focus on those players that you are much better at ‘reading’, and with whom you enjoy sustained and predictable success.  

Don’t switch alliances to another player

Switching from one targeted player to another who happens to be the favourite for a given match can be a recipe for being consistently wrong-footed in your tennis betting.

After all, if you have followed our earlier advice to focus on specific players, you are unlikely to have the same level of knowledge about any new player, so will have to build it up all over again.

In any case, if the long-time player that you have targeted is a slight underdog in a given match, that’s simply an indication of a good-value bet – not an excuse to ditch them after all of your hard work on them to date.

Watch out for schedule congestion and unseeded sharks

It’s easy to be tempted into backing a top 10 or well-known player in a small event simply because you have heard of them – but this could be a major mistake.

Keep an eye on how the highest-ranked players actually do at the lower-profile tournaments – a lot of the time, factors like schedule congestion and a much more important tournament looming in a few weeks’ time could hamper their form and motivation.

It is precisely because of these factors that unseeded players could be well worth backing – odds close to the early teens could be very attractive if there is good reason to think that the favourite could be about to have an off-day. 

Plan ahead for different rounds

Once you get the draw for the next tournament on which you intend to bet, download and print it and look at who is playing against who – and who they could potentially face in future rounds.

It might be that in a particular round, the bookies aren’t offering much value on a particular player you have targeted. In that case, you shouldn’t feel the need to waste your money unnecessarily – instead, look ahead and pre-plan the next round, researching the possibilities and considering what the odds will likely be.

If you do see value, you will then know what matches and players you will probably be most interested in targeting.

Research information about the playing surface

Novice tennis bettors often fail to appreciate just how much difference there is between various players’ performances from one surface to the next – a player who is world-class on grass can be less than impressive against the top seeds on clay.

Use sites like matchstat to get a sense of which players fare best on various surfaces, so that you can tailor your betting approach accordingly.

Keep following proven strategies like those above, and you can look forward to much more rewarding tennis betting for a long time to come!