How to Bet on Wimbledon

The Wimbledon Tennis Championships is the biggest tennis tournament in the UK and, at least for British people, will ignite images of sunshine, rain delays, strawberries and cream, royalty and celebrities in attendance, and some of the greatest tennis in history being played.

With tennis being the second most popular sport in the world for punters to bet on, behind football, it’s only natural that the biggest grass tournament will attract bets from all over.

Wimbledon Tennis Championships

The Wimbledon Tennis Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of four Grand Slam tournaments, along with the US Open, French Open and Australian Open. Since 1988, it is the only major tournament still played on grass.

Founded in 1877, the first tournament saw twenty-two men compete in the Gentlemen’s singles event. Ladies’ singles was added in 1884, along with the men’s doubles. Ladies’ and mixed doubles were added in 1913.

Nowadays, 128 men and 128 women play in their respective singles competitions, with 64 teams in each of the men’s or ladies’ doubles, and 48 teams in the mixed doubles. All events are single elimination tournaments, with the men’s singles being played as best-of-five sets and the others all being best-of-three sets.

How to Bet on Wimbledon

Betting on Wimbledon can be a little tricky, mainly because the earlier rounds will have big differences in betting odds.

For example, the top seeds may well all be drawn against qualifiers, wild cards, or players ranked outside the top 100. This means the odds on them winning will be far too short to get any value out of.

However, there are a few things to look at and take into consideration which may improve your chances of making a profit or finding the big value bets.

Previous Tournament Record

Look at previous years tournaments to see how well players have done in the past. Wimbledon is one of those tournaments where players tend to do well and then kick on in future. The same names will tend to reach the latter stages, but occasionally you will get that breakthrough player.

That breakthrough doesn’t tend to just happen overnight though. The player would have improved in recent Wimbledon tournaments, perhaps taken a top seed to a deciding set etc. By looking at past tournaments, you can find the players who do well and look for those players on the verge of making it to the latter stages.

It will also help you to find those seeded players who tend to get knocked out in early rounds, or who tend to struggle in the first round and may have need five-sets to advance on more than one occasion.

Another market this will help with is outright tournament winner. Knowing who regularly gets to the latter stages of a tournament allows you to have a better guess at who will win the tournament.

Record on Grass

Just as important, if not more important than previous Wimbledon showings, is a players record on grass throughout a season.

Some players, even highly ranked players, can struggle on grass. They may be exceptional on clay or hard courts but their game doesn’t suit the switch to grass. Whilst others may excel on grass, despite being ranked low in the world because they do not pick up enough ranking points on clay.

Knowing which players perform well on the surface they are playing on is vital. It can allow you to find possible upsets, at what could be extremely good odds, and also give you the edge in what looks like a tightly matched contest.

Head to Head

Looking at head to head records between players can give you an indication to which player will come into the match with a psychological advantage.

However, make sure you take the correct statistics into consideration.

You may look at a head to record which shows Player A has won 15 of 19 previous meetings, meaning Player B has only won 4 times. This would automatically make you opt for Player A.

But what if the head to head record looked like this:

• Player A Wins – Hard Court – 9
• Player A Wins – Clay Court – 6
• Player A Wins – Grass Court – 0
• Player B Wins – Hard Court – 0
• Player B Wins – Clay Court – 0
• Player B Wins – Grass Court – 4

Player A may have a fantastic overall record but all of Player B’s wins have come on grass, a surface Player A has had no success on against this opponent. Looking further into it you may see that two of those four grass wins for Player B came at previous Wimbledon Championships.

So, straight away, Player B would have the edge due to previous tournament meetings and previous meetings on the same surface. Player A may be ranked higher and be priced as the short-priced favourite, but this is an occasion where the outsider would have the better chance.

Find Alternative Markets

As mentioned before, there may not be much value in betting on match result markets in the earlier rounds so it may be best to look for alternatives.

Total points, Total sets, and handicap markets are all an option here but our advice would be to take advantage of the in-play markets. Betting in-play can give you the chance to take advantage of slow starting high seeded players who may lose the opening set. They should have the talent and experience to overcome this, especially against a young, inexperienced, or lowly ranked player, but the odds on them winning would have increased due to the first set loss.

This is where clever punters can gain more value from their bets and take advantage of the several in-play betting market available throughout the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.