How to bet on Tennis: Match Winner, Match Winner, Set Betting and Match Handicap Markets
From the Grand Slams to the lower-level ATP and WTA Tour events, there are plenty of tennis betting opportunities nearly every week of the year.
The hard-court swing continues in the USA at the moment but the clay-court campaign is just over the horizon and the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open are still to come in 2024.
For those new to betting on tennis, it can be difficult to know how you should approach individual matches but this guide outlines the most popular tennis betting markets and information on how to bet on them.
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How to bet on the match winner
This is the simplest way to bet on a tennis match. There is no such thing as a draw in a tennis match, so this is a two-way market betting on which player will win the encounter.
In most men's and women's events, it is the first player to win two sets (the best of three), although in men's Grand Slam matches, it is a best-of-five format.
If, for example, I were to place a £10 bet on Jiri Lehecka at 5/1 to beat Jannik Sinner in a match and Lehecka was the first player to win two sets, the wager would win and return £60.
How to beat on set betting
Another approach to tennis matches is set betting. This can result in bigger returns and involves betting on how many sets each player will win, a bit like a correct score pick in football.
For that same match between Lehecka and Sinner, the options are 2-0 to either player or 2-1 to either player.
If I were to place a £10 bet on Lehecka to win 2-1 at odds of 10/1, it would return £110 if he won by that margin.
This betting approach is good if the odds of a player to win are shorter than you would like and you expected them to win in straight sets (2-0) or if you think it will be a close match but fancy one player to nick it over the other (2-1).
How to bet on match handicap
One of the most popular markets in tennis betting is the match handicap, which can also be a bit tricky to understand.
Once again, this approach is useful if you fancy a player to win by a decent margin or if you think and underdog can perform better than the odds predict.
For example, Sinner is given a match handicap start of -4.5 at odds of 8/11 in our example match against Lehecka.
For this bet to win, Sinner needs to 'cover' the handicap, meaning he will need to win at least five games more than opponent Lehecka.
This could happen in a number of ways and does not mean he has to win in straight sets.
If he were to win the match 6-1 6-3, then this bet would win as he would have won eight games more than his opponent.
Similarly, the bet would come in if Sinner were to drop a set but win 6-2 6-7 6-1, as he has still won eight games more than his opponent and therefore comfortably covered the handicap.
On the flip side, punters can back Lehecka at +4.5 at 1/1. This is essentially just the opposite, meaning Lehecka gets a 'head start' of +4.5 and this means punters are backing him to keep within five games of his opponent Sinner.
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