You do not have to be a hardcore tennis fan to like tennis as a sport to bet on. Tennis has a topflight circuit each for men and women – ATP and WTA – and also has tiers below that, which means that gamblers jonesing for action are covered for almost the entire year – day and night.
There is almost never a tennis event NOT happening, except for a little while towards the end of the year but that time is the holiday season anyway.
So what have we learnt so far? Tennis is well important if you want to make money through sports betting. But before you start gallivanting towards sportsbooks to fund your account(s), let’s first get you an overview of what there is in a typical tennis season and how to best prepare yourself for it.
Both the ATP and WTA seasons have four grand slams each, namely the Australian Open, the French Open, the Wimbledon and the US Open. As the name gives away, these four tournaments are the grandest events in each calendar year and contribute the most to the player rankings maintained by the ATP and WTA.
Let’s dissect each of the four slams in detail.
The very first grand slam of the year is held in Melbourne, Australia in early January. It is a hard court slam, one of two on the circuit. It, however, used to be a grass court slam until they changed it in 1987.
Due to its faster courts, the Aussie Open can be a bit more thrilling to watch for the neutrals, although the heat of Melbourne can at times dampen the mood. It remains one of the most highly attended tennis events in the world.
The man who should be feared at every Australian Open is Novak Djokovic, who has won this slam a staggering nine times now. On the women’s side, Margaret Court has 11 titles to her name.
The second slam of the year is the French Open, which is typically held during the clay court swing between May and June. The Paris-based tourney, nicknamed Roland Garros, is the only clay major of the year. Due to its surface, the ball speed is slow during French Open, making points harder to score. It is, thus, the most exhausting event of the year and only those with an endless supply of stamina in the tank and powerful groundstrokes make deep runs here.
Rafael Nadal of Spain is called the King of Clay, for he has won the French Open a record 13 times. On the women’s side, Chris Evert leads, with seven titles to her name.
Next slam on the calendar is Wimbledon, which is typically held in England in July. It is one of the classiest and tradition-oriented tournaments, with the players still required to adhere to etiquettes of eras gone by. It is also the only slam to be played on grass and so it favours players who are fast and powerful and not shy from rushing towards the net and shorten up the points – a style known as serve and volleying.
Wimbledon isn’t complete without the mention of its most famous son, Roger Federer, who has won the tournament eight times, while the most dominant champion on the women’s side is Martina Navratilova (9 titles).
The final grand slam of a tennis year is the US Open, which is played in New York between August and September. Like Australian Open, US Open is also played on the hard court, making it the only surface with two slams.
In the Open Era, US Open’s most successful male champs have been Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer – all of whom have won the title five times each. Similarly, in the Open era, most dominant women in US Open have been Chris Evert and Serena Williams (five titles each).
After the four grand slams, the most prestigious tennis tournament is the ATP and WTA Finals, which are played by eight of the top-ranked players on both the men’s and women’s sides respectively. Since this event only features the cream of tennis world and matches are held on hard courts, the Finals are very exciting to watch.
Smaller than the Finals are the 1,000-point Masters, which are scattered throughout the year. Other than that, a number of smaller tourneys also take place under various names.
The tennis calendar also features three team events, namely Davis Cup (for men), Fed Cup (for women) and Laver Cup (Team Europe vs Team World).
Additionally, after every four years, the tennis year also gets an Olympics tournament, which obviously is considered at least as big as the ATP Finals in prestige.
Over the years, India has largely seen its players bow out of singles soon and concentrate on doubles. That trend reflects in the fact that currently no Indian player is ranked among the top 100 players on the ATP tour. The highest-ranked Indian is Sumit Nagal, followed by Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Ramkumar Ramanathan, Saketh Myneni, Sasikumar Mukund and Sidharth Rawat.
In the WTA rankings, India has five players among the top 500 players, with the highest-ranked obviously being Ankita Raina, followed by Rutuka Bhosale, and Riya Bhatia.
Both ATP and WTA tours are amply covered by most sportsbooks. The tennis betting markets are divided into outrights and in-tournament or even in-game (live) events. The outrights deal with picking the finals winner of any said tournament regardless of what happens in individual matches.
In-tournament bets are concerned with picking the winners of individual matches, whereas live betting allows gamblers to stake their money on an individual at a particular moment in the match.
Where mismatches produce extremely short, almost unplayable odds, gamblers can even things out by betting on the number of sets/games in the match or also play the handicap where the favourite has to win by a particular margin and the underdog has to lose by no more than that margin.
Generally speaking, since tennis is an individual sport and there is no concept of backups, it is wiser to never go crazy or all-in on any particular play, no matter how much of a lock it seems. One off day or one hour below the usual best, and the favourite could be packing his/her bag out of the tournament.