Tennis Tournament Betting

As with many sports, there are numerous different ways to bet on tennis. We have covered them on separate pages on this site, with this page being dedicated to the notion of betting on tennis tournaments. That is different from betting on individual matches because it requires you to consider various aspects of the sport as a whole. Whereas other forms of betting are much shorter, allowing wagers on the likes of which player will win the individual matches taking place or even the specific sets, tournament betting asks you to think longer-term.

As the name suggests, this bet type is aimed at thinking about the overall winner of the entire tournament. Whether you like to bet on men’s tennis or the women’s game, placing a bet on the tournament is a much trickier thing to do and see your bet be a winner thanks to all of the factors that you need to take into account. Whether you’re looking at how well an individual tennis player or a doubles team performs on a specific surface or how clever the players are when it comes to winning in a given country, there is so much more to think about with tournament betting.

What We’re Talking About

If you’re the sort of person that wants to place a bet on tennis as a sport, you need to weigh up your approach. Do you want to bet on an individual match, for example? Or are you keen to get down into the nitty-gritty of the matches themselves, looking at who will win the next set or, in the case of In-Play betting, you can even bet on the winner of the next point. For those of you that prefer to take a wider view, tournament betting might be something that you’ll want to consider looking into in some more detail.

Winning the Overall Tournament

This is a bet on the player or players that will win the overall tournament in a specific discipline. It is worth remembering with tennis that the sport is split into difference disciplines, with men, women, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles taking place in the vast majority of tournament. What we’re looking at here is a bet on the eventual winner of that part of the draw, which is arguably the most simplistic bet that you can place on tennis whilst also coming with its own complications.

Includes Singles, Doubles, Etc.

Who will win the men’s singles? The mixed doubles? The ladies’ singles? They are the questions that you need to ask yourself when weighing up what tournament bet to place. Whilst the individual match wins obviously matter in the sense that you need your chosen player or players to win their matches in order to progress to the final, how they win is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that they win, match after match, making their way towards the final and the match that will see whether or not you’re going to claim any winnings.

Look at the Draw

When you’re thinking of placing a bet on the outcome of a tennis tournament, the first thing that you should do is to have a look at the draw. Tennis tournaments see the draw made ahead of time, meaning that you can have a sense which player or players are going to have to defeat which other players before the final, should they make it there. In other words, you are given information before you even need to think about placing your bet which tells you whether or not certain players will play each other in their side of the draw.

Let us imagine, for a moment, that there is a draw in which Top Player 1 is drawn in the same side of the competition as Top Player 2. Suddenly, a bet on Top Player 3 to be the overall winner makes sense, on account of the fact that at least one of the top two players in the world will be knocked out before the final. This means that a less able player might be able to win the tournament outright, simply because of the side of the draw that they are on. If Top Player 1 has to play good player after good player, for example, they might be exhausted by the final.

Each-Way Betting

As with many other sports, tennis allows you to place an Each-Way bet. This usually means that bookmakers will take two separate bets from you but you pay as if it is one bet. In other words, a £10 Each-Way bet on Top Player 3 would involve you paying £20; £10 for the Win bet and £10 for the Place. Each sportsbook will have their own rules and regulations when it comes to an Each-Way bet, with the terms published on their site. It is not unreasonable to assume that most will adopt the same terms for Each-Way tournament bets, though.

Betting That a Player Will At Least Reach the Final

Usually, an Each-Way bet on the outright winner of a tournament is a wager that says you think the player will either win the competition or else reach the final. Each-Way bets see you place half of your bet on the win at the original odds that you were offered and half of your bet on them finishing second at half of the odds. A £10 Each-Way bet on Top Player 3 to win the tournament outright at odds of 9/1 therefore means that you’re betting £10 on the win and £10 on the place, with the latter having odds of 4.5/1 or similar.

If Top Player 3 wins the tournament, both of your bets are winners and you get the associated payout, as well as your stake money back. If they reach the final but lose, you lose your Win bet of £10 and win your Place bet of £10 at odds of 4.5/1, meaning that you’ll be paid out £55, which is £45 plus your stake. This obviously suggests that placing an Each-Way bet makes sense, but don’t forget that if your player doesn’t even make the final then you’re £20 down without any chance of seeing your bet come in.

Think About the Tournament You’re Betting On

The good news about tennis is that there are loads of different tournaments that you can bet on. Whilst the obvious ones will always jump out at you, such as Wimbledon, the Australian Open or the US Open, there are also smaller events that you might want to consider. From the ATP Tour events through to the WTA Tour, you will be able to bet on a wealth of different competitions if you want to. As always, the main thing that you should bear in mind is that you should never bet on something that you don’t understand.

As much as you might think you know tennis as a sport, it is extremely likely that you don’t understand the various different tournaments that are played throughout the year. Why is it that the biggest players don’t take part in the smaller ATP Tour events, for example? How come the best female player in the world isn’t interested in the WTA Tour event that you’re thinking about betting on? The answers to these questions aren’t all that important, but the very fact that you might know what the answers are suggests you should steer clear.

Of course, if you do know what you’re talking about then you might well be in a good position to find some value with the right bookmaker. Bookies don’t necessarily know all of the competitions that they offer odds on as well as some of the punters, so they can be in a position where they’re offering odds that don’t seem quite right to you. When you bear in mind the implied probability of odds, you’ll soon see that there is plenty of value to be found on occasions when you know the tournaments better than the bookmakers.

Do Your Research

As a bettor, the number one thing that you can do when it comes to tournament betting is a wealth of research. There is plenty of information to be found out there about how players tend to do on each surface type, for example, so there’s no point in placing a bet on a player to do well on grass when they have never been able to do so in the past. Similarly, a doubles player might have taken on a new partner heading into a competition, meaning that they’re less likely to win than they have in the past because the chemistry isn’t right.

Whatever it is that you think might give you an edge in your tournament betting, do as much research as you can on the topic so that you’re best-placed to be able to take advantage when the odds are in your favour. Tournaments are difficult things to predict the winners of, but that works both ways. Bookies are just as unlikely to struggle to know what is going on as punters are, so there is scope there for sensible bettors to do a wealth of research and look for the edges. Think sensibly, work hard and bet accordingly.