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Grand Slam Set Betting - Why It Pays To Oppose The Logical View ...

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As a tournament progresses, the matches get tougher. Logic dictates that they should therefore be closer, with less straight set wins. Matt Walton says this is not always the case, and has some statistics to prove it.

The way in which Messrs. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have all breezed through their first two rounds of matches in the Australian Open (none of them dropping a set) prompted a search through the record books.

It has been argued before that bookmakers, along with exchange backers and layers, are far too eager to presume that matches will be won by favourites in straight sets. And the shorter the outright price for the match, the more likely this is to occur.

Hence for Round 3 we have seen Federer quoted very short [1.3] to defeat Tipsarevic 3-0, Nadal [1.56] to whitewash Simon and Djokovic [1.4] to thrash Querrey. And you're not going to get rich very quickly, if at all, backing at those kind of odds.

The logic is quite simple. At the start of tournaments, with the very best and the very worst players in action, and often against each other, we should see more 3-0 scorelines. Then, as the rounds pass and the matches become more competitive, we should see the percentages move in favour of the 3-1 and 3-2 scorelines - i.e. matches lasting four or five sets.

Federer will breeze past the likes of Diego Hartfield in R1 but when he faces Novak Djokovic in the SF's it should be a longer match. This view, in essence, is pretty easy to comprehend.

This year at the Australian Open in Round 1 we saw the 64 matches produce the following set of results. There were 35 three set matches, 17 four set matches and 12 matches that went the full distance of five sets. Into Round 2 and the stats were 19-9-4.

So we find that in Round 1 we had 55% of the matches over with a 3-0 scoreline but then in the supposedly more competitive Round 2 the figure rose to 59% - hence we delved into the record books!

The table below shows the figures for the Grand Slam tournaments held during 2007. We're looking at the first four rounds to give us a fair indication of whether, as backers or layers, we should be moving away from the 3-0 scoreline the further we get into tournaments - because the logic suggests that we should.

The figures give us a fascinating insight into this debate. We find in Round 1 of these four events that the matches are over 3-0 the following times - Australian 48%, French 54%, Wimbledon 65% and the US Open 53%.

The peculiarities of grass may account for Wimbledon's high figure but it's the comparison with the later rounds that interests us here.

Into Round 2 and the figures are 53%-63%-50%-59%. So we have a higher percentage of 3-0 scorelines in the Australian, French and the US Open but Wimbledon has dropped from 65% to 50% with only 16 of 32 matches producing 3-0 scorelines.

Round 3 has the mark at 56%-50%-56%-43%. Here we have the French and the US Open going down but the Australian (9 of 16) and Wimbledon (9 of 16) going up!

Finally, in Round 4, it's 25% for both the Australian and US Open but the French and Wimbledon show increases at 75% and 63% respectively.

The point may well be that although the matches should, at least on paper, become more competitive as the rounds pass perhaps the better players are playing themselves into the tournament with every match played and so provide even more dominant displays to scupper this argument. Maybe?

It has to be said that these findings proved somewhat annoying. The perception, and simple logic, would suggest that the number of three set matches should fall sharply as the rounds pass. Quite clearly, they don't appear to.

Mind you, maybe this gives us an angle to exploit ... some bookmakers, and exchange users, could very well subscribe to this logical argument and as a result offer some decent prices about a whitewash.

Hence, when you're looking at the set betting markets on Betfair do bear in mind that although the logic says one thing, the stats say another. There's always an angle to be found if you look hard enough!

Take a look at the exchanges as the Australian Open progresses and see whether the 3-0 scoreline becomes the value call.