Tennis Betting Advice - April 2020
Upcoming events worthy of our attention...
Tuesday 21st April 2020
In your Ones to Watch email today:
Good news, we have some tennis coming up...
Good news is hard to come by right now. There are glimmers of hope though. And in terms of the tennis, May and June are now not looking quite as barren as first thought...
With Wimbledon off and the ATP & WTA tours suspended until July at the earliest, organisers, coaches and players are getting creative in order to get some form of tennis up and running in the meantime.
Germany leading the way...
With Germany appearing to have the coronavirus situation under control, our first foray back into some on-court action looks likely to be at the newly-announced Tennis Point Exhibition Series event, starting 1st May…
That’s next weekend, so it’s something to look forward to pretty soon.
The event is set to feature eight players competing over four days, on indoor clay courts. With social distancing measures and protection measures taken, according to the latest advice from the German authorities.
One of the players lined up for this event is our old friend, Dustin Brown. If you’re a long-time Ones to Watch member, then you’ll have fond memories of the dreadlocked serve & volley merchant knocking Rafael Nadal out at Wimbledon back in 2015 (landing match-day odds of 7/1 in the process).
With May’s proposed Tennis Point Series being an exhibition tournament, there won’t be any world ranking points up for grabs for the players. However, there will be a financial incentive, as well as a fundraising element.
And while not an official ATP competition, this new venture is many levels above the don’t-touch-with-a-bargepole ‘exhibition’ matches that have been taking place in Russia lately, consisting of players with virtually zero rankings history or credible recorded form.
The new German event will feature players from outside the current world top 100, granted. But these players are still familiar to me. They are on the system. They are recognised professionals.
I’ll be covering that event, starting from next week once more details are available. The match markets may be of interest to us. You and I will go into those matches with more ammo on our side than many casual bettors and followers.
The Tennis Integrity Unit have given the thumbs-up for bookmakers to cover the Tennis Point Exhibition Series in Germany, so we can expect a decent array of markets to be available come next weekend.
And there’s more in the pipeline…
Upcoming events worthy of our attention…
Serena Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou has this week announced the Ultimate Tennis Showdown. This is proposed as a five-weekend, behind closed doors event to be held at his tennis academy in France, starting 16th May.
Mouratoglou says 50 matches will be streamed live, online. Top 10 player David Goffin is one of the names set to be involved, and Patrick says the calibre will be high with only “very good” players on the roster.
Along with that French event, other exhibition-style competitions are being planned in Germany and also in Austria, with Australian Open runner-up Dominic Thiem a box office name for the Austrians to potentially sign up.
Jamie Murray is also reportedly looking at options to get some events going for British players this summer.
The ATP has said that players are "free to make decisions concerning their own activities" while the official tour events are not taking place. It remains to be seen if the women’s game gets in on these types of interim tournaments, too. It looks a possibility, though.
All in all, given the circumstances, these announcements are about as good as tennis fans could have hoped for right now - if not better.
There will be no fans at these events, but the facility is there for live streaming so we can all watch the matches. And with the bookies keen to cover some live sport, this all adds up to some plenty worthwhile tennis for us to follow in May, for starters.
We won’t be rushing to bet. But with the standard of the players involved expected to be at around normal tour level, these new events will most definitely warrant our attention.
Indeed, while a seasoned competitor like Dustin Brown is far from a household name, he is very much in my notes and has been for several years. We’ll be looking for an edge in the markets.
And in the world of Esports…
Madrid ‘online’ next week...
Next week we also have the Madrid Open going virtual & online, with Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal just two of the names signed up to play the event out on screen from their own homes, with Playstation controllers instead of tennis rackets.
This E-Tennis event will be played using the Tennis World Tour game. It starts on Monday, 27th April.
I’m anticipating that the bookies will want in on this, too. The matches will be live streamed. I’ll be following the ‘Madrid’ action, and let you know what I make of it.
That’s all from me for now. But I leave you today with a hint of optimism in the air. We have some tennis to look forward to, and I’m going to be making sure I’m up to speed on these proposed new events, the format, and the players involved. Something to look forward to right now, for sure...
Take care.
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson