Betfair Tennis Trading Strategies: Laying low

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How seeding affects tournament odds

One aspect of tennis that deserves attention is the fact that Grand Slams like Wimbledon are seeded tournaments. In a seeded knock-out tournament, the organisers are 'shaping' the tournament so that the best players get to play each other near the latter stages. After all if it costs thousands to watch the final in centre court you really want to see a good show.

Each half of the draw is separated and the top-ranked player and a second favourite will be on opposite sides of the draw. This is with the intention that they will meet in the final. The top four seeds are likely to meet in the semis, top eight in the quarter-finals and so on.

That means it's quite common to see some very uncompetitive matches during a seeded tournament. In these matches the favourite is often at very short odds on to win the match, maybe somewhere between 1.011/100 and 1.101/10. There is little value backing at these prices, so it makes sense to look for opportunities to lay. If you lay outright on the market you need to make some judgement on form, or some other characteristic, you are having a gamble. But by trading, you can potentially profit in a large number of these early round ties where an outright punt just wouldn't be viable. The key to the strategy is laying a very short priced favourite with the intention of trading out if they drift in price but trying to exit your trade for no loss if the favourite performs as expected.

How seeds affect tournaments odds

The first thing you need to do is identify a suitable match. Not all heavily odds-on matches can produce the right characteristics. So fire up Bet Angel's 'Tennis trader' tool and start to examine each match. What you are looking for is what happens if the red-hot favourite loses a service game or fails to break down his/her opponent quickly.

You are trying to work out what it will take for the odds to start to move away from the very low odds in which the match starts at. This doesn't necessarily need to be a break of serve, just the prospect of a break. If you pick the right match the odds can start to move if the server drops two points on serve. This becomes more significant on surfaces like Grass where a break is more 'valuable'. Games on grass are more likely to go with service, so it will be harder to break back.

Murray Madness

Andy Murray is known as a slow starter and when the world no.1 played Fernando Verdasco in the quarter-finals a few years ago he was under pressure in the first set. This caused his price to edge out and Verdasco broke an edgy Murray to send his price out to 1.330/100 from a starting price of 1.101/10. Murray immediately broke back but then gifted his opponent the set with a double fault on his serve to throw away the first set. Murray eventually drifted to 2.166/5 before going on to the win the match. Laying £100 at 1.101/10 would only incur a potential loss of £10 but you could have cashed out for a profit of over £15 on Murray losing the first set, or £50 if you held on for another break in the second.

Andy Murray has already played his first match of this year but the 'Bank of Murray' paid out again when he had a nervous start to his first round match and looked like he may get broken in the first game. Despite starting at odds of 1.051/20 he touched 1.141/7 before getting a grip and gently easing ahead of his opponent for a straight sets win.

The above example is quite tame compared to some of things that can happen and they seem to happen on a regular basis. I remember once of my best ever Tennis trades occured when Nadal, priced at just 1.071/14 to win his match struggled to overcome Lukáš Rosol at Wimbledon. Nadal drifted to odds-against before turning the match around.

Summary

This is why Tennis is such a wonderful trading sport. Its unusual scoring system leads to some wild swings even if you get relatively minor errors. Just the potential of a break of serve on grass will shift the odds a bit, but those odds will drift much further if that break actually occurs. This will give you the ability to cash-out for a profit on a drift on a player, even if they comfortably close out the match.

So when you see an uncompetitive tennis match, sit up and lay low.

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