Understanding Tennis Betting Lines

Knowing the ins and outs of tennis betting lines is step one.

• Bettors can wager on tennis just as they can most any other sport.
• Many of the same bets – point spread, moneyline, and totals – are available in tennis betting.

Tennis might not be a mainstream sport for some bettors, but there is plenty of opportunity to bet on it. The tennis calendar is set up so that bettors can usually find matchups on any given day.

HANDICAPPING TIPS AND STRATEGIES FOR BETTING ON TENNIS

Tennis is also a pretty progressive sport in terms of data and analytics. Bettors can tap into that information to help them find value bets.

To bet on tennis, you first need an understanding of tennis betting lines.

Futures are typically the way most bettors wager on tennis, but for the smarter bettor value can be found in betting tennis lines with moneylines too.

When betting the moneyline in tennis, you are simply betting on a player to win an individual match over his opponent. You might see the following tennis moneyline.

Rafael Nadal -120

Stan Wawrinka +220

Nadal is the favorite and if you bet $120 on him and he defeated Wawrinka, you would win $100. 

Just like other sports – first five innings in MLB and first period in NHL – you can also wager on the individual set winners. 

With all of the data available, bettors can track the trends in tennis. There are some players that typically get off to good starts and others that do not. Say you have a player that wins a lot of matches but drops the first set often.

The wager looks like the one above but is only for the first set.

First Set

Rafael Nadal -200

Stan Wawrinka +375

Nadal is favored in the opening set and he’s favored to win the match, but according to analytics he loses the first set 70 percent of the time. You can wager $100 on Wawrinka and if he wins the first set you win $375. Nadal may go on to win the match, but your bet has already been settled.

You can bet on both game and set spreads in tennis. Bettors will often find some big odds in game spreads because individual player sports have less variance than team sports.

For example, the No. 1 player in the world is playing the No. 100-ranked player. Player 1 is favored to win the match at -5000. In a three set match, the spread may be set at -4.5. If that’s the case, Player 1 must win five or more games than Player 100.

Player 1 -4.5

Player 100 +4.5

If the match ends up 6-2, 6-3 in favor of Player 1, then Player 1 has covered winning 12 games to Player 100’s five. If the match had ended 6-4, 6-4 in favor of Player 1, Player 100 would have covered the spread. Player 1 only won four more games. 

Tennis bettors can also bet on set spreads which are typically set at -1.5. The favorite would need to win a set by at least two games to cover.

Betting tennis games and totals are fun to bet too. Bettors are wagering on the number of games played in the match. In a women’s match, the total may look like this.

Barty O 22.5 (-110)

Stephens U 22.5 (-110)

Here, the total is set at 22.5. If the match goes to a third set and ends 6-3, 4-6, 6-1; the total has gone Over (26 total games).