Hi all, after years of concentrating on horse punting I'm interested in trying to turn a profit from tennis betting. Can anyone suggest some good websites for stats etc? I know there is a tennis package for sale here but I like to do my own homework.

Not the best time of the year to start betting on Tennis... we only have one tournament left for this year...

For your question, I usually follow the players' form and make plays suitable on their style, mental ability and physical fitness against their opponents. These things will come to you naturally if u follow the players and the tournaments week in week out like us cappers do.

I'm not a big fan of stat myself, but H2H record can be useful sometimes.

Try these two : atptennis.com and livescore.cc

Best suggestion is that you should just wait til next season start in January, or just coat-tail others around here and see what you yourself comes up with.

BOL to you, mate...

Thanks for that. I figured I would just have to watch more telly and get to know the lower ranked players better. So there is not as much number crunching as the GG's? I love maths but sometimes it can be self defeating as you think that with THIS many calculations you MUST be on a winner!
I like your breakdown of form, mental ability, style and fitness.... very helpful.
Do you like betting on matches involving the top ten or not ( not much choice in a Masters series I guess). Cheers.

Tennis at top level is mostly only about the players' mentality and how they handle the pressure to close out the set or the match. Top 10 players are normally the hardest to crack (except for Nalbandian, altho he has exceptional skills). Fighting spirits like Stepanek, Davydenko and Hewitt must also be taken into consideration.

In my opininon, probably the easiest tournament to earn some cash in the French Open, cuz dirt-ballers are at their strongest surface and they really believe they can beat anyone on it.

$@M already suggested www.atptennis.com which is very good for player interviews, head to head and other sorts of statistics, but you can also try www.itftennis.com.

The ITF site is a little more in depth when it comes to player head to heads as it includes qualifying matches, something the ATP site does not do.

Another good thing about the ITF site is that you can check players juniour records. This can be very handy if there is a player that is fairly new to the tour and you want to find out how they have done on various surfaces.

Personally I think the best way to make money out of tennis is to become very familiar with the lesser known players. The top players are always going to be made very heavy favourites, but the lines seem to be a little bit looser when it comes to the players people are unfamiliar with.

Hope that helps.

Sparks

Hey Dirk,

Firstly, I don't recommend buying a tennis betting package. I'm not talking from experience as I have never ventured down that avenue, but from my experience in 'learning the ropes' I believe you will be more successful developing your own skills as a tennis capper rather than paying for someone elses opinion.

Less than two years ago I started keeping up to date with ATP tournaments and by doing so developed a certain understanding of players abilities. A good way to start is by not only keeping up with current tournaments, but also looking through some fourms and seeing how others go about it, gathering a variety of differing viewpoints on matches, and then using these ideas to put your own spin on the match. After time you should find that you are able to preview matches yourself, and you will be familiar with the majority of players inside and outside of the top 50.

It may sound like it will take years to gather such knowledge, but we are always learning and once you have the basics down you can begin to broaden your knowledge and will find yourself turning a nice healthy and more improtantly, consitant profit.

This year was my first year of actually taking tennis punting seriously (not staking huge amounts but keeping a record of my results). It turned out better than I ever expected, with a profit of over 50 units and a ROI of 21.4%, which is better than alot of those $1000 packages you can buy. Doing the form yourself and succeeding is one of the most satisfying parts of punting for me and Im sure you'll prefer to keep $1000 in your pocket and do the form yourself, rather than paying for someone elses tips.

All you need is patience and consistancy

Good luck mate
Betsy

"I believe you will be more successful developing your own skills as a tennis capper rather than paying for someone elses opinion."

Depends what you want. If he wants to develop skill, don't buy a package. If his goal is to make money, buy a package. The most successful people in sportsbetting are not handicappers.

Can I be greedy and say I want to make money by developing a skill? If there is one thing I've learned over the years it is that betting markets change year to year due to, for example, an increased participation of online punters and the increase of info available to punters. A strategy might work well for a few years and then falter as the area you punt on gets targeted by pros or the info you once had to dig for becomes readily available.
I guess that is my reasoning for formulating my own strategy so that if my profits start to sag then I can tweak my approach rather than buying a different package.
Thanks for all your input and I guess I'll be putting my two cents worth into the forum next year.

"I guess that is my reasoning for formulating my own strategy so that if my profits start to sag then I can tweak my approach rather than buying a different package."

Fair enough.

I've done quite a bit of handicapping myself, but I'm more interested in making money. I like sportsbetting, and it's a great job for me. I like analyzing it all etc but it requires more hours than I want to put in, since just betting all the picks I get is a reasonable job (should be around 9k straight bets next year, then throw in the arbs, middles, teasers etc).

"is that betting markets change year to year due to, for example, an increased participation of online punters and the increase of info available to punters. A strategy might work well for a few years and then falter as the area you punt on gets targeted by pros or the info you once had to dig for becomes readily available."

Depends on the maturity of the market. I have no doubt that tennis will become tougher, but it should always be beatable for a decent amount. Bookies just won't be able to spend as much time as a dedicated handicapper. The main reason I think atp will become tougher is because it's not a heavy public market compared to the different football leagues, so you'll get more informed punters, and since you can get quite alot of money down, it forces the books to become more efficient (because a greater % of the action is sharp money).

Heavy punters markets like the american sports (esp football & bball), soccer, and the diff footy codes will change much more slowly as the sharps represent a much smaller % of the action.

Basically I'm saying the tennis market will become more efficient, but it'll always be beatable for a decent amount. This market has already sharpened up quite a bit anyway. A technique that works now for a decent amount will work in the future, unless something in the sport totally changes (eg nhl).

"the area you punt on gets targeted by pros or the info you once had to dig for becomes readily available."

Tennis has already been targeted by pros. The market responded by becoming more efficient. Most successful cappers haven't done nearly as well in '04 and '05 as they did previously (although my sample size is only around half a dozen).

Info becoming readily available doesn't matter unless people are able to take advantage of it, and a huge majority of punters don't have the skills to do so. Look at more efficient markets like the footy codes in Aus, or football or nba in the US. They have MUCH more info available than tennis, yet nearly all the punters are as dumb as ever lol.

If a capper can beat a sport for a good amount, it's likely he has the skills to adapt to changes in the market.

"if my profits start to sag then I can tweak my approach"

Easier said than done, since variance is so large. It's quite possible to go 15% for the first half of the season and then 2% for the second half. It may be variance, it may be that your system isn't all that good anymore, or it may just be that your system doesn't suit something that occurs in the 2nd half of the season (eg surface).

Think that's enough, it's hot and I need a swim.