A guide to betting on women’s tennis games
Betting on women’s tennis can be very profitable experience, but be prepared to act with supreme discipline because their on court antics can make you rip your hair out. One thing we must get out of the way is that women’s tennis differs greatly from men’s tennis.
The difference mainly being that physically most women cannot serve with the power that a man can. This translates into a much different game between the two. Whereas in most men’s tennis games, breaks of serves are few and far in between, and women’s game could have more breaks than successful serves. In fact games have been played where neither player could hold the entire set.
Here are some tips for betting on women’s WTA Tennis games:
Break of serves
In men’s tennis, whoever has the serve is usually at an advantage to win the game. This is the opposite for women. Because they can’t serve as powerfully as a male player would, that means their opponent has an easy opportunity to smash the ball back to them. This is why there are so many breaks of serves. If you are able to bet on individual games within a set, then betting against the server can be profitable as the odds are almost always even money or at plus money. For example if you were betting on a game with Jelena Jokovic, and she is serving, then the odds may be +200 or 2 to 1 that she breaks. Incredibly Jelena is always reliable to break on her serve no matter who she plays. On the other hand, do not ever bet on the server because the odds are against you. The odds to bet on a server (depending on skill level) are anywhere from -200 to -500. So therefore if you decided to hammer a -250 bet on the server, you could potentially lose 2.5 times your money if the server has her serve broken. WTA players are trained and spent countless hours playing so they can return a serve much better than they can serve a game.
Mental toughness
It can be argued that women are more emotional than men. However please don’t let a feminist hear you say that. On the court this may be to your advantage or your detriment. If a player is winning the set by say 4 games to 1, do not ever think for a second that this will continue that way. It only takes a small rally or some weird play to make the winning player drop the next few games and even lose the whole set. Losing momentum is another thing you must watch out for when betting these games. Just because your player has reeled off 4 games in a roll does not mean that will keep happening. If the player is up by that much, she may let up on the opponent and “let” her win the next few games. This is of course to your advantage as well since the losing player’s serving odds will be lower sometime as low as even money.
Serving for the set
Serving for the set can be very tempting to bet because as a bettor you are thinking, “OK, she will serve to win the whole set, she CAN’T lose this one” Well buddy before you hammer that play, I would say walk away unless you like killing your bankroll. A bettor can’t see in a player’s head so they don’t realize that serving for the set is a very anxious and nerving thing to do for a player. Now add in the fact that women are weak on serve, it just adds to the pie of failure. It is better to bet against someone serving on set or not to bet all all. Discipline is the key to winning on betting, so learn to walk away if you are not certain. Here is a scenario that I have witnessed too many times: Player A is killing it, and is up 5 games to 2 and she just has to serve to win out the set. Player B is a huge underdog and looks defeated. Player A starts serving gets nervous. She starts double faulting or committing unforced errors one after another. Next thing you know she loses the game and you just lost your hammer play. Interestingly though on the next game, where Player B is serving, Player A will MOST OF THE TIME break Player B to win the set.
Number of Sets
I’m not sure of the stats on this, but I see a lot of women’s tennis game go 3 sets. This happens for 2 reasons. The first reason is that sometimes a heavily favored player will “purposely” lose the first set. This is for a variety of reasons. It could be because she is not feeling focused yet, or that she underestimated her opponent’s skill, or just because she thinks she is that much better that she can afford to lose the first set. When this happens, then the favored player will usually step up her game and play better to win the second set. Bettors can profit off this by taking the favored player after she loses the first set. When a heavily favored player loses the first set, the odds are close to even. So when you had a player at say -300 now it’s at +100, or even money. The 2nd reason a game could go to 3 sets is when two similarly ranked players play, due to the previously mentioned weak serves, bad nerves, the more desperate player will usually win the 2nd set. This is not to be applied to all situations but is good for live in betting if you have that option.
Underdog Plays
Betting on the underdog is a risk and when you are looking for a sure bet, most of the time you will bet on the favorite. Betting blindly on the favorite will help you lose your shirt quickly so be careful of betting on favorites in women’s tennis. Due to the fickle nature of a woman player, she could easily lose to huge underdogs on any given day. The bookmaker will usually give brand name players high odds, such as Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters, Vera Zveroneva, Agnieska Radwanska, these ladies will command anywhere from -200 to -1000 plays. What is great about this is that any of these ladies can lose to a player that is only ranked a few spots behind. A bettor’s perception of favorites and the player’s name are key in how a bookmaker decides what the odds are on a favorite. However if you look at Serena Williams, she entered the Australian Open and promptly lost to Makarova – a player most of us have never heard of. Imagine what the odds would have been. The perception was that Serena is a multi-slam champion and would probably take the whole tournament. The reality is that Serena is currently not motivated to play tennis. She has publicly stated that tennis has become less of a passion for her these days. She is instead spending her time on her personal businesses rather than practicing on the court. She is also aging and her large body will become more of a drag as she ages. Therefore players who are currently out there will probably destroy Serena. Yet the bookmaker had Serena as a huge favorite.
So these are the most important things to remember when you bet on WTA women’s tennis. It is neverthess profitable to bet on these games because of the great odds you are getting, however it is a very unpredictable sport so bet ALWAYS with caution and pick your spots to bet. Never bet one game after another or bet blindly on public perception.
Good luck, play responsibly and with discipline.
Donny Sports
