Grass, clay and hard courts take it in turns through the tennis year, and the book prices whichever one the tour has reached. Four tournaments hold their place in the calendar. Everything else turns over week by week, so the tennis list is rarely the same list two weeks running.
Match winner, a handicap on games and total games are priced pre-match and once play is under way, with outrights on the events the sportsbook has open.
A tennis game is won by the first player to reach four points and lead by two, and six games, won the same way, make up a set. Outrights are bets on who wins the whole tournament rather than one match.
A tennis match carries no clock. It ends when one player has won enough of it, and a player two points from defeat has still not lost.
The competitions
The four majors are the fixed points of the tennis year, on grass, clay and hard courts, and for a lot of people they are the only tennis that registers.
The tour that fills most of the rest of the year is where the sport actually lives.
- Wimbledon. Grass at the All England Club in London, late June into July. The ball stays low and quick and the server keeps the initiative, which shortens rallies and matches alike.
- The US Open. Hard courts at Flushing Meadows in New York, from the back end of August into September, with day sessions and night sessions that finish when most of the city has given up and gone to bed.
- The Australian Open. Hard courts at Melbourne Park in January, the first major of the year and the one played in serious heat.
- The French Open. Clay at Roland Garros in Paris, late May into June. Clay slows the ball and stretches the rallies, and it stretches plenty of matches with them.
- The tour below the majors. Both the men's and the women's tours run a ladder of events most weeks of the year, from the 1000-level tournaments down through the 500 and 250 tiers, with a Challenger circuit below the men's tour and a season-ending meeting of the players at the top.
- The surface swings. January is played on hard courts, clay takes the tour into late May and June, grass fills the few weeks from late June into July, and hard courts carry it through to September. A swing is that run of weeks on one surface, and the whole tour moves from one to the next together.
Only the four majors carry a card of their own.
The tour changes city every week, so whatever it has landed on sits on the sports list with everything else BetDukes prices, singles and doubles together.
The markets
Match winner
The bet is on which of the two players wins the match, shown as W1 and W2. There is no draw to sell, and the match runs until somebody has won it. a match that begins but is not finished voids the market, unless a player is disqualified, and then the player who progresses settles as the winner.
Games handicap
One player's game count is adjusted by a line, minus 2.5 say, and the line is applied to the final game count. Give two and a half and your player has to win by three games or more. The market runs off the scheduled number of sets, so a change to that number voids it.
Total games
Over or under on every game the two players win between them. A best of three that runs to two tight sets and a best of five that goes the distance sit nowhere near each other, so the format comes before the number.
A set level at six games each is usually settled by a tie-break, a shootout to seven points. It counts as one game, however long it lasts.
Outrights
The tournament winner, priced on the events the sportsbook has open. Outrights are non-runner no-bet: back a player who then comes out of the draw before striking a ball and the stake comes back, while the prices left standing can carry a Rule 4 deduction.
Rule 4 is the deduction that adjusts the remaining prices to allow for the player who has gone.
A tennis card is not four markets deep. The rest of the list is grouped around the sets and the serving, and each group has its own line in the tennis section of the Sports Betting Rules about what happens when a match does not finish.
In-play
Tennis prices move in steps rather than drifts. Winning your own service game, a hold, changes almost nothing. Losing it, a break, changes everything, and the price you were reading a minute ago is gone before the players swap ends of the court.
What the price tracks is who serves next, and how safely they hold. Break points move a number further than a set score does.
A price you can reach in-play is always a point behind the one you wanted.
Every price quoted away from the sportsbook carries the time it was taken. Once a match has started, a retirement voids the markets on it, and a disqualification settles on whoever goes through.
What to look at before you bet
- Three sets or five. Every women's match and almost every men's match is the best of three. Men's singles at the majors is the best of five, where a two-set lead is a lead and not a result.
- What the court does to the ball. Clay rewards stamina and heavy topspin, grass rewards the serve, hard courts sit between the two. A player's numbers are only worth reading on the surface that produced them.
- Hold and break percentages. A break of serve is hard to win back, so a heavy server pushes a total-games line up and a good returner pulls it down. Those two numbers describe a match better than a ranking does.
- Recent meetings. The same players go round the same swing of tournaments week after week, so a meeting on the surface they have just left is worth more than the gap between their rankings.
- The week behind the player. The player may have arrived in a new city, crossed a time zone, sometimes changed surface, and finished their last match near midnight. An early start the following afternoon is not a fresh pair of legs.
- The level of the event. A 250 draw and a major do not ask the same questions of a favourite. There are fewer rounds, the matches are shorter, and less of the draw stands between them and the trophy.
The tennis quick guide
- Start with the format. Three sets or five changes what a line is worth.
- Match the surface to the form. Clay numbers do not follow a player onto grass.
- Read the serve before the ranking. Hold and break percentages describe the match; a ranking describes the season.
- Remember a match can stop. One that ends early is not a result.
- Take a live price between games, not during one. Points move fastest when you can act slowest.
Retirements, disqualifications and a changed number of sets each have their own line in the tennis section of the Sports Betting Rules, and the cards open the four majors and the wider tennis list.
