Tennis Betting Tips, Previews & News

Tennis is one of the most popular gambling markets for punters all around the world and Bets.com.au is home to exclusive betting tips, tennis bet of the day and much more.

The sport provides ample opportunity for gambling, with professional tournaments held internationally every week and four major tournaments that capture global attention every year.

Tennis is a big part of the Australian sporting calendar and our tennis heroes are held in the highest esteem.

In our tennis betting guide below we’ll take you through all of the popular tennis betting markets, the offerings from bookmakers, which tournaments you should keep an eye on and how to maximise your betting returns.

While there are a constant stream of odds on offer for tournaments on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour, bookmakers typically reserve their bigger promotions and offerings for the Australian Open and the other tennis major tournaments.

Promotions typically involve multi-betting specials, specials surrounding aces and other individual feats and you’ll often find boosted odds for particular favourites or popular Australian combatants, especially on home soil.

Tennis punters have no shortage of markets to bet on for the average tennis game and that number grows even higher for games played at major tournaments.

Here is an outline of the most popular markets:

Head-to-head betting:

This market is pretty simple — you pick the winner of the match, you win the bet. Be warned, different bookmakers have different rules for mid-game retirements, so sometimes if you think you’ve won, you really haven’t.

Set betting:

In set betting punters can find odds on who wins a particular set, the length of a set, the number of games in a set and how many games a set will go for.  

Correct score first set:

The all-important first set is a popular betting market for punters who want some quick returns in what can be a very long game.

Games handicap:

The games handicap is a tool for bookmakers to even out the odds and provide a more competitive match, in terms of betting.

A games handicap could look something like this:

Djokovic -6.5 games vs. Rublev +6.5

This means that Djokovic's margin must be more than 6 games if he wins to cover this spread.

If Djokovic goes on to win the match 6-4, 5-6, 6-4. 7-6, he has won 24 games in total to Rublev's 20. If you bet Rublev to cover the +6.5 spread, you would win the bet.

Multi betting has been a phenomenon for tennis punters over the last decade, providing an avenue to combine up to 10 seemingly-meaningless games to drastically increase odds.

Tennis is often seen as the perfect sport to build a multi, given the wide array of games taking place at any given time and the one-sided nature of the odds.

While there are regular upsets in tennis, there are also more one-sided affairs, given wildcards and lower-ranked players are often pitted against the very best players in the world in the first two or three rounds of any given major tournament.

If a bookmaker offers $1.10 for Federer to beat a player you have never heard of, it may not seem like a lot, but combined with five or six other legs in which you are confident in and you can get in excess of $2 — that’s what makes a multi bet so popular with tennis punters.

While die-hard tennis fans and punters will watch all year round, it is during the sport’s four major tournaments in which the game catches everyone’s attention.

The Australian Open, French open, Wimbledon and the US Open are four of the most-watched and most-gambled on events on the sporting calendar and the prize money on offer makes the best tennis players some of the richest athletes alive.

Australian Open:

Played in the middle of Australia’s summer over two weeks in January and February each year, the Australian Open is a physically-challenging tournament played on hard court in the heart of Melbourne’s sporting precinct. 

Novak Djokovic holds the record for men’s singles championships with 10, while Margaret Court has 11 titles, dominating the women’s side of the ledger.

There is a total of $76.5 million in prize money spread across the entire tournament for men and women.

French Open:

The second major tournament of the year is held in Paris over two weeks from late May to June. Played on the iconic clay surface at Roland Garros, the French Open tournament offers $68.8 million in overall prize money, with a $3.7 million purse for the singles champions.

Spanish champion Rafael Nadal is one of the best, if not the best, player to ever play on clay, notching an incredible 14 singles titles. Former world number one Chris Evert won the tournament seven times.

Wimbledon:

Wimbledon is the oldest and most iconic tennis major on the professional circuit, played in the United Kingdom in the first two weeks of July.

Played on the legendary and perfectly-maintained grass surface, Wimbledon has $62.1 million in combined prize money and a $4.13 million for the singles champs.

Roger Federer has eight men's single titles, while Martina Navratilova has nine titles and is the most successful player to ever walk out at SW19. 

US Open:

Played in New York at Flushing Meadows, the US Open is the final major on the calendar and played on hard court. 

Played from August to September, the tournament offers $76.6 million in overall prize money and $5.4 million for the singles champs.

Tennis legends Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors and Roger Federer have all won the men’s singles championship five times, while Chris Evert and Serena Williams have won the women’s crown six times.

Whether you’re betting on a game at Wimbledon or on the ATP tour in a city you’ve never heard of, your attitude to betting on tennis should be the same - follow the value.

Keep an eye on our free tips section as our expert analysts pick apart the best tennis bets in any given week and constantly check what our recommended bookmakers are offering so you don’t miss out on multi specials and boosted odds on the game’s champs.

In Australia access to tennis footage is mixed between free-to-air and paid subscribers, with a few live streaming bonuses from a particular bookmaker to boot.

The Australian Open and Wimbledon is beamed out free to all Australians on Channel 9 and punters can live stream all the action via the Nine Now app.

If you want to take your tennis fandom more seriously, you can subscribe to Foxtel and Kayo, which will follow more professional tournaments and other majors — like the French Open and US Open — that may not make it to free-to-air.

For even more tennis live streaming, Bet365 broadcasts all games throughout the year on their app to members.