Category: Tennis
Court Speed in Tennis Trading
Recently on Twitter, there has been detailed conversation about court speed, and the impact that it has in Tennis.
As a trader, let me make one point abundantly clear here – I don’t care why the conditions at a venue is fast or slow, just that it will be, and that it is possible to ascertain this information in advance. Advance knowledge of conditions will enable me to work out the likelihood of players holding serve, and a fast hard …
Tennis trading – Assessing the first break of the match
Laying a player when a break up in the first set is a popular trading entry point, so I thought I’d go through some of the stats from the recent Miami Masters/Premier Mandatory tournament to get some concrete data for several variables for the player leading by the first break in the first set.
These variables were as follows:-
- ‘Train’ percentage – the percentage of the time that the player who took the first break in the set won the
Creating a Tennis Trading strategy
I’ve had a lot of people ask me about creating a Tennis trading strategy recently, so I thought I’d post an updated version of old article from January 2014 which a lot of people have found useful in the past.
For this article, my plan was to detail how to create and use an effective ‘script’ to trade a tennis match, by means of laying player’s service games and laying the player a break up in a set.
It is …
Assessing Over & Under Performing ATP Players
Having a strong interest in sports analytics, reading this article which focuses on the success of FC Midtjylland and Brentford FC – https://decorrespondent.nl/2607/How-data-not-humans-run-this-Danish-football-club/230219386155-d2948861- naturally piqued my interest. These two clubs – both owned by millionaire hedge fund manager and sports bettor Matthew Benham – use data analytics to assess performance in a number of areas, and one way that they use these analytics is to look for undervalued players in the transfer market.
When I read this article, my first …
Bet Angel now includes live Tennis scores
We are delighted to announce Bet Angel professional version 1.39 has been released. This is a major upgrade from version 1.38. Key new features: –
- Live tennis scores via Betfair.com now exposed via Bet Angel
- Bet or Trade automatically based on underlying scores in a match
- Improvements to the search feature
- Improvements to Tennis trader
The new version of Bet Angel is available for immediate download. You can download and install from: –
https://www.betangel.com/download/?product=BetAngelPro
If you are an existing Bet …
Is the Davis Cup better trading fodder?
Several weeks ago, Tennis traders were treated to a weekend of epic trading action in the Davis Cup, with five players coming back from two sets down to force a deciding set, including James Ward’s memorable victory over John Isner, which turned the whole tie in favour of Great Britain following Andy Murray’s facile defeat of Donald Young.
During, and following the weekend, there was some speculation regarding trading the Davis Cup and the general theme was towards the World …
Analysis of Top 10 ATP Players
As we saw last week in the analysis of the top women players, there was a big discrepancy between the several – Serena Williams (in particular), Sharapova and Halep – and the rest. I also discussed that previous research in the ATP showed that matches featuring two elite players had slightly more breaks than the average ATP match.
I decided to do detailed analysis of the current men’s top ten players to see if the tendencies of the WTA repeated …
Analysis of Top WTA Players
Top ten versus top ten is a facet of Tennis that is quite under-researched, and I’ve mentioned previously that generally the ATP elite players in particular have slightly more breaks of serve against each other than the Tour average.
Something I’ve also alluded to is the fact that some players are – to use a cricket phrase – a ‘flat-track bully’. According to dictionary.com, an exact definition is ‘a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents.’ …
US Open Tennis – Trading short priced favourites
I was chatting with a few fellow traders on Skype during day three of the US Open this week and we commented that there seems to be a lot of surprise results in the WTA tournament, and in particular that both the ‘big name’ players appeared to be very short for starting prices in Grand Slams, and that they were losing the first set much more than they should be – allowing some profitable lay to back trades.
[Editor – …
US Open Tennis – Scoreline statistics
A short into to a regular new feature
For some time I’ve been analysing various aspects of a number of key sports, but one thing that is the enemy of that is time, I don’t have any! So I’ve taken to surrounding myself with people who do and who are specialist in those areas I can’t devote enough time to. Bet Angel customer Dan has a neat website, Tennis Ratings and his work was right up my street. It’s …
Sweet spots
Every market has a sweet sport. Odds that will be reached more often than others, a score.
This also applies to trading. Depending on how you chose to enter and exit, there is a sweet spot in terms of when it’s best to trade in and out.
When I model a market I’m looking for sweet spots. Optimal places where it makes ‘sense’ to open, close to trade to in a market. At first you can’t do this going forward …
Tennis trading
In my journey to understand Tennis I had to work out how and why the market moved, so it was with that in mind that we created Tennis trader. It allowed us to probe the deepest detail of any Tennis match and set up strategies that would allow us to profit from that. Using Tennis trader you can get an idea of what is required for any strategy to pay off, what risk you are taking and when this will …
Inside the Shadowy World of Tennis Courtsiding
Interesting article on Court siding with contributions from Sporting Data, whose spotter was ejected from the Aussie open earlier this year, and also news of a book coming out about it! An interesting dialogue on the world of courtsiding.
You can read the full article on the fivethirtyfive web site.
Various quotes from various sources but in essence a summary of the courtsiding debate and some insight into what has been going on for quite a few years now.…
French open tennis – When it’s good to see red!
It’s great to see the start of the French open tennis and it’s one of those moments when the red clay surface will often mean green for traders.
Grand Slams often produce good matches and the slower surface at Roland Garros will bring shot making and athleticism to the fore.
Early rounds of grand slams often bring up very shot prices, but the odd shock. So I’m generally looking to oppose red hot favourites in the early rounds hoping for …
Tales of the unexpected
With the Australian open over we can reminisce on what happened. The most obvious thing was that the first grand slam of the year had two unexpected winners. I’m not expecting that to repeat through the season. Djokovic, Nadal and Murray are at the top of their careers at the moments and that has to be a theme through the year.
I’ve learnt to look at the Aussie Open for clues of break through players. I think we saw a …
Federer vs Nadal
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will continue their great rivalry tomorrow when they meet for the 11th time on a Grand Slam stage.
It should be an interesting match, but I thought the quarter between Murray and Federer would be as well, but that didn’t turn out to be so blockbusting. I’ve had a quiet Aussie open. Some decent results but less active than last year while I’ve been working on some key projects. The early mornings were too much …
Courtsider scandal at Australian open hits the headlines
Australian authorities took a big step to send courtsiders packing last night with a aggressive move to enforce gambling laws. Australian legislators take a dim view of in-play betting as they feel it will damage the integrity of sport and it’s banned in Australia. This moves indicates they are actively seeking out courtsiders during games.
News broke as follows: –
“Last night a 22 year old man was arrested and charged with offences under Victoria’s new crimes integrity in sports …
Australian Open Tennis is here
The start of the year is a great time to get some Tennis trading experience under your belt. If you want a quick browse of previous advice dispensed on Tennis, click here to search the blog for Tennis articles.
The Australian Open is the first grand slam tournament of the year and usually presents some good opportunities. In 2012 we were treated to a legendary final which I documented on the blog. The final turned over £46.2m in matched …
Predicting the winner of the US Open
It’s not just the players that are complaining about the scheduling of the US Open Tennis. I can’t trade the final tonight as it’s my wedding anniversary today. I’ve been married even longer than I’ve been on Betfair, but one benefit of that is the next generation of traders is following just behind me!
I saw this interesting BBC article this morning and it talks about the data collection that IBM do as part of their deal to these tournaments: …
The market can be bizzare sometimes
We were treated to a spectacular turn of events last night at the US Open Tennis.
By a coincidence, I have been carefully studying the way the market behaves before the off at the US Open this year. More or less it’s flat as a pancake, but there are subtle bits of information contained in the pre-off pricing. I’ve been more interested in how this changes over the rounds.
In the latter stages of the tournament as the amount pre-off …
Why we have a Federer fail
Lots of press this morning about the ‘shock’ exit of Roger Federer in the US Open. But, as I have posted before, Federer is definitely in the twilight of his career. As a middle aged man, much as I hate to admit it, 32 is old in sporting terms. In Tennis, players turn pro at an average age of 18 and retire at 32, Federer is 32.
I love analysing all sorts of things to spot, and more importantly, anticipate …
Some US Open tennis detail
I meant to post this earlier in the week, but other matters have over taken me, but I hope this gives you a hint at some of the metrics and variation at this tournament.
The surface at the US Open has been Decoturf since 1978. This is faster and has a lower bounce than the other Hard court slam, the Australian open. Because of this, many serve-and-volley players have done well at the US Open.
I looked back over 13 …
My longest prediction yet
Phew, what a busy period that was and the appropriate climax to much action came on to a head at Wimbledon on Sunday. I’m taking a short break now before returning to the full fold later in the week.
I’m having some R&R, not rest and relaxation, but rest and research. I’m taking a break from the trading to go over things like Royal Ascot and Wimbledon. I’ve collected a massive amount of data over Wimbledon, so I need to …
High expectations
Expectations are high for today’s men final and I think for once I’ll just watch and enjoy it, though I will gather data. It’s been a very busy two weeks at Wimbledon and it’s throwing off above average trading characteristics, so time for a well deserved rest.
I watched last years final from Silverstone but this year the diary has lined up a bit better, but I may end up watching it at the beach because the weather is so …
The thin line between individual skill in Tennis
If you have been active on Wimbledon these past two weeks you would have seen some great matches. But you should have also seen something else, maybe without realising it.
Often you see an outsider really battle away at a heavy odds on favourite, maybe even winning the first set, but despite this their odds don’t seem to come in that much. If you look at Murray’s match against Janowicz, Janowicz was at one set all and leading 4-1. His …
Shock or not?
All the talk during Wimbledon so far has been about the surprise at seeing seeded players crashing out of the tournament. Just how ‘shocking’ is it?
I looked backed at 12 years of Wimbledon and ranked each round by the lowest ranked loser in each round on the men’s Tennis. Averaging out the results in each round shows that there isn’t really much of a bias per round. The average rank of a losing player in any round is more …
Bartoli Bonkers
I fancied the Stephens vs Bartoli match above others yesterday because it looked much more competitive. It turned out to be a very interesting match.
Bartoli was soundly disliked for pushing for a rain break when the crowd wanted more action, but the break didn’t do much to diminish her spirit and she closed out the match. In fact it looked like a bit of gamesmanship from Bartoli. She demanded to stop play at 4-5 to her and 40-40 on …
When is a Tennis player most likely to hold serve?
If you back a player before they serve, they are very likely to win their service game. At which point the odds will contract and you can net a profit, hurrah! Sounds easy, but nothing ever is that simple is it?
So, one itching question I sought to solve last year was “Which game is a player most likely to win on serve”. The hypothesis was that the propensity to win on serve is higher at some times than others.…
An Ace is worth more than a point
When you read that statement it looks a little strange. How can one point be worth more than another? But statistics seem to show that’s true.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been busy collecting data on a range of Tennis matches from the top level of how a match played, in games and sets, right down to individual points.
I’ve been carefully examining how one point affects another and spotted what seemed to be a bias on serving …
Retirements at Wimbledon
What a strange day that was yesterday? Most of the commentators were a little perplexed by the unfolding retirement situation and then to top it off we have defending champion Federer out in road two, which opens up the tournament significantly for Mr Murray.
But of course the talk was all about the large number of retirements, so lets see if it really was that unusual.
Checking back on women’s Tennis at Wimbledon there have been 12 retirements and three …
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