Truths, Lies and Tennis Statistics / Matthew Walton / 07 December 2007 / Leave a comment

"Magical" Mathew Walton advises tennis punters to not completely dismiss qualifiers as no-hopers

When you study the draw for a tournament, the presence of the word 'Qualifier' will often spark very little interest. After all, if a player is so low in the rankings to have to pre-qualify for the main draw (or not good enough to receive a wild-card or sponsor's invitation) why should we be concerned with their impact on the outright betting? Or even Round 1 match betting for that matter.

And, logically, this view holds water. Players who are higher in the rankings will get into these events as of right, they may even be good enough to be seeded, and so as 'form students' we should expect them to be a higher calibre of performer. Consequently we pay more heed to their claims and factor them in as more serious possibilities for tournament success.

The poor qualifier, on the other hand, is a less successful player, is lower in the rankings and has less chance of winning matches - let alone the tournament outright. Hence, we could view their presence in the draw as merely 'making up the numbers' and pay little regard to them when considering the betting markets.

However, having said all that, the events of 2007 are littered with examples of qualifiers taking out supposedly top-class opposition. Take, for instance, Viktor Troicki beating Novak Djokovic in Umag and Marin Cilic defeating Nikolay Davydenko in St. Petersburg - both are examples of qualifiers knocking out No.1 seeds.

Qualifiers may not always have ability on their side but they do have match practice, tournament competitiveness, acclimitisation and (arguably) a greater hunger for success. How often have you heard about so-called fancied players being 'under-cooked' for matches? Or short of match practice? This is where the qualifiers can bite back.

Now before we completely switch sides and start championing the cause of the humble qualifier it is worth noting that only one (Steve Darcis in Amersfoort) has gone on to win an event in 2007. We did also see one wild-card succeed as well - but Guillermo Canas in Brazil can hardly be lumped in with the also-rans.

There are several players of note who habitually make it through the qualifiers and into the main draw of tournaments, now they are worth mentioning.

For this year it's Teimuraz Gabashvili and Alejandro Falla (8 times) who head the list in terms of successful qualification, Marin Cilic (6), Paul Capdeville, Dusan Vemic, Andreas Seppi and Fabio Fognini (all 5) come next.

Only Steve Darcis went on to win an event but the likes of Falla, Cilic and Troicki have made SF's which does make them potential betting material. Troicki, especially, was a huge price [150.00] and that could provide later opportunities to lay off or hedge and so secure yourself a tidy profit without your man necessarily making it all the way to the finishing line.

So all these players are worthy of note as they could very well become the improvers of 2008 - Cilic and Seppi would definitely be in this category.

Ultimately what do we make of qualifiers? Having studied their impact during this year the view is that the vast majority are qualifiers for the right reasons i.e. they're outside the world's top 100 and harbour little chance of outright success. Most bomb out in R1 or R2 and just provide an easy introduction into an event for the seeded players.

But, before we dismiss these players out of hand, we must give due notice to the victory of Steve Darcis, the SF appearances of several qualifiers in 2007 and the definite insight we get into the potential winners of tomorrow. Ignore them at your peril!
If you have any opinions on trends within tennis betting or systems you use to unearth winners by all means let us know and we'll study their potential for long-term success.

Tags: Australian Open, betting on tennis, Mario Cilic, tennis qualifiers