Australian Open Tennis

The first major sporting event of the year gets underway with the opening Grand Slam of the tennis calendar, the ‘Australian Open’. With weaker Betfair trading markets elsewhere, especially the racing front, the Australian Open is a perfect time to get going with some Betfair tennis trading instead.

If you want a quick browse of previous advice dispensed on Tennis trading strategies, try our top Tennis trading videos on the Bet Angel Academy. Or check out our forum which is full of chatter from previous tournaments that should help you get some additional insight and what to look for in the upcoming fortnight.

Live scores at the Aussie Open

Some of you may remember, from recent years, that Betfair cannot provide the live score feed via their API (which is where Bet Angel gets them from). Unfortunately, Betfair has confirmed they will not be providing them again this year. Betting exchanges will have live scores, but they will just not pass them through the exchange to Bet Angel.

Not having a live score feed from the Tennis match means any automation that you have or intended to use that triggers off scores, server conditions etc, will not work in this tournament.

Although you won’t be able to run automation on Tennis markets during the Australian Open, we still have a whole season ahead of us, so if nothing else, this will be an excellent chance to get some manual trading under your belt and get a feel for how the markets work to help you create a rules file (bot) ready for upcoming tournaments.

Tennis Trader Tool

The lack of a live score feed means Bet Angel’s unique Tennis Trader tool can not update automatically either. However, it is still possible to use this profiling tool by manually updating the scores yourself; it will then continue to display the predicted prices point by point, game by game and set by set as the match progresses. It will then let you understand the impact on the current service game, what entry point you should use and the impact of breaks of serve.

If you have never done this, the following thread from our forum details how to setup & update the Tennis Trader scores manually, and if you are totally new to Tennis Trader and would like to give it a go, there are plenty of videos walking you through it on the Bet Angel TV page linked to above, or there is this thread also from our forum which also steps you through how to use it effectively.

Despite the absence of the live score feed, as always, I’m still very much looking forward to getting stuck into the opening Grand Slam of the year.

Over the years, Tennis has become a firm favourite of mine outside racing leading me to focus on it more and more over the years and this year will be no exception so I’m hoping to to get off to a good start.

The main reason it appeals to me is Tennis produces some big swings in prices, which create lots of opportunities, especially in the women’s tournaments. Hence, it’s not uncommon to see prices of favourites or those trading at <1.15 early in a match drift out to 2+ and back again and there’s often no shortage of back-and-forth swings like in the charts below.

Early Risers

For those who are new to trading tennis and might not fancy the idea of sitting up all night, there will still be plenty of matches starting early morning UK time, and as the tournament wears on these will generally be the better matches with the more prominent names getting scheduled in the evening (Aus time) therefore morning here in the UK.

Finally, don’t forget to drop by this year’s dedicated forum thread, which I and many others be active on, posting and updating regularly, so feel free to check it out and join in the chat.