Some of the most high-profile sports action of the calendar year comes from tennis courts around the world. From the long ATP and WTA seasons to the high-profile Grand Slam events, tennis tournaments delight fans and punters almost every day of the year.
It’s also a sport for which many different types of betting options are available, from tournament outrights to pre-match options and deep in-play coverage on matches. Here, we look at tennis betting and examine some of the most popular markets.
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Basic rules of tennis
The basic concept of tennis is fairly simple. Two opposing players (or teams if it’s a doubles match) occupy one half of a tennis court, separated by a net. The goal is to get the ball over the net within bounds so that the opposing player/team can’t return it.
Each point starts with a baseline serve from the back of the court, and when the ball is in play, players do anything they can to get the ball back over the net and in bounds. This can be a direct volley without letting the ball bounce, or after the ball has bounced once. If a player lets the ball bounce on their side of the court more than once or hits it out of play, they lose the point.
Scoring
Points scoring is not a standard 1, 2 and 3 like in football. Each player starts a game with ‘love’ (zero), and then the scoring points are 15, 30, 40 and Game.
After each point, the umpire will call things such as ‘15-love’, ‘30-40’ or ‘game’. If both players reach 40 points, then ‘deuce’ is called. At deuce, the player who wins the first point will be at ‘advantage’, and if they win the next point, the game is theirs. If they lose that next point, the deuce is reset.
- Games – Games in tennis require a player to win by two clear points.
- Set – To win a set, six games (typically) need to be won. Players must win a set by two clear games, so if the set is at 6-5, play will continue. Usually, at 6-6, a tie-break game comes into effect.
- Match – Tennis matches are the best of three or best of five sets, so a player would need to win two or three sets to claim victory.
There are more nuanced rules surrounding areas such as legal serves and player challenges, but the above is a good overview when looking at the different types of bets that can be placed on tennis.
Match Winner
This is the most popular type of tennis bet, focusing on the outcome of a match, where only one of two outcomes can happen. While this means that the Match Winner market is a straightforward two-way bet, once odds are taken into consideration, it gets a little more challenging.
Many tennis matches have a firm favourite at a low-value odds-on price. In a match such as Carlos Alcaraz 1.33 vs Fabio Fognini 3.75 odds, the former is a clear favourite, and the expected outcome of Alcaraz winning has such a strong probability that the odds on that option aren’t appealing, with only 0.33 profit for every 1 unit of stake.
Lop-sided matches commonly appear in the early rounds of tournaments, such as the Australian Open, where seeded players face unseeded ones. It’s in the latter stages of tournaments where more evenly matched opponents go up against one another and better odds can be found, perhaps more in the range of Jannik Sinner 1.83 vs Alexander Zverev 2.03.
Tennis accas
The Match Winner market is ideal for creating tennis accumulator bets. Some punters take the strategy of putting one really strong odds-on selection into an accumulator to anchor it, and then make longer-priced selections to fill out the wager.
Given that most days have an abundance of tennis matches from the WTA and ATP going on, it’s a popular but high-risk way to bet on tennis. In an acca, all selections have to win for the bet to be successful.
Tennis betting terminology
- Odds-on – A price that is less than 2.0 (1/1, even money).
- Odds against – A price that is greater than 2.0 (1/1, even money).
- Acca – A multi-selection wager where all picks have to be correct for it to win.
- Two-Way – A market with only two outcomes.
Set betting
Set betting is like picking a Correct Score bet for a football match. Tennis matches are always the best of three or the best of five sets. This is helpful because there are a limited number of options to choose from.
In a best-of-five set men’s Grand Slam match, for example, the options will be 3-0, 3-1 or 3-2 for either player. Set betting options are not just for the correct final score, but are also linked to selecting the correct winning player, such as:
- Jack Draper 3-1
- Coco Gauff 2-0
- Jasmine Paolini 2-1
Set Score
A similar bet is the Set Score, which focuses on one particular set and not the entire match. So, in a Set 2 Score pick, you could take an option such as Alexander Zverev 6-3 scoreline for 5.0 odds as the outcome of the second set only.
Total Sets
The total number of sets that will be played in a match can also be backed. This will be a straight Over/Under option, such as Over 2.5 Sets or Under 3.5.
Set Winner
Bettors can also select which player will win a certain set. This is a standard two-way market such as Set 1 Winner. The overall match result doesn’t matter.
Total games betting
Game betting on a tennis match is done as an Over/Under option. There is a minimum of six games per set, which would give a starting point of at least 18 expected games per match. However, the result of a match could be 6-4, 1-6, 6-4, which is 28 games in total. This is a highly unpredictable area of tennis betting, where options such as Over 18.5, Under 22.5, and Over 24.5 could be in play.
If the top seed Aryna Sabalenka was facing a qualifier in the first round of Wimbledon, you would expect her to win in straight sets without dropping many games, so a lower Total Games line could be targeted. In a contest between two evenly matched players, the expectancy of a longer match could be in the frame.
Total Set Games
Further options can be discovered by breaking a match down into individual sets. This means that an option such as Set 1 Total Games becomes available, with Under/Over 10.5 Games being one of the most popular picks. It is also possible to find prop bets, such as whether the total number of games in the match or a set will come out as odd or even.
Handicap betting
Handicap betting is a way to find value beyond the match outright. A handicap line on a strong favourite could be something like -4.5, requiring the backed player to win by at least five games in total across the match (when games from all sets are tallied up).
Bettors will typically have the option to tease that line by selecting from a range of other options, depending on how big of a margin they expect a player to win or lose by. A commanding, strong favourite in a match could be backed at -6.5, for example.
A positive handicap, such as +3.5, is a way to back an underdog, and as long as they don’t lose by a margin of more than three games, the bet would win.
Outright Tournament Winner
A wider betting angle can be taken by looking at the Outright Tournament Winner market. These are posted well before the start of an event, so you could be looking at the latest Wimbledon winner odds, for example, three months ahead of time.
The advantage of this is that the prices will be longer due to the uncertainty on the market so far ahead of the tournament starting. However, that same uncertainty can also be a disadvantage because there is no way to know what a player’s form or fitness levels ahead of the Grand Slam are going to be.
It’s also possible to bet on the tournament winner during the event itself. As the main draw of a tournament progresses, the market will constantly adjust to reflect the positions of those left standing.
Stage of Elimination
Stage of Elimination bets are where an outsider can be backed just to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open, for example.
The option can mitigate some of the risks of backing that same player to go on and lift the title. A similar betting option is To Win Quarter, where you decide which player will reach the semi-finals from a particular section of a draw.
Each-Way Tournament Winner
An Each-Way bet is made up of two parts, the Win and the Place, and is used a lot in horse racing betting. For tennis betting, backing Carlos Alcaraz Each Way to win the French Open would mean either:
| Result | Payout |
| Alcaraz wins | Full payout on both the Win and the Place parts of the bet |
| Alcaraz loses the final | Win part of the bet loses, the Place part is paid out on |
| Alcaraz fails to reach the final | The entire bet is lost |
A €1 Each-Way bet would require a €2 stake (€1 Win, €1 Place). While the Win part of the wager is paid out at full odds, the Place part is only paid at a fraction of those original odds, perhaps 1/4 or 1/3, depending on the market terms.
Live tennis betting
Many of the markets discussed above are also available in play. Live tennis betting can also produce additional bet options, such as who will win the next game. Natural pauses in tennis make it an ideal sport for live betting.
Variety
There’s a great range of different bet types available for tennis. The above is just a sample of the most popular ones. To keep up with all the latest tennis markets from around the world, check out Tonybet for tournament, pre-match and in-play tennis betting.
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