Tennis US Open Guide 2011 - Sports Trading...

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Transcript of Tennis US Open Guide 2011 - Sports Trading...

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Tennis US Open Guide 2011

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Tennis US Open Guide 2011

The main purpose of this guide is to present potential angles for your trading or betting.The advice given is not compulsory and it should only be used at your discretion.

Sportstradinglife.com is not responsible for any losses you might possibly incur when youplace money on this event.

However, if this advice does help you to make some money then feel free to buy usa beer! :-)

The Introduction

So here it is! For tennis fans and traders this is one of the highlights of the year. This is the final Grand Slam of the year and the one which attracts the most attention. From a gambling and trading point of view there will be huge Liquidity and plenty of trading opportunities to be had. I know some experienced tennis traders love this time of the year and will be looking forwards to making a nice amount over the next two weeks. If you are new to tennis trading then this can be a good tournament to “cut your teeth” on. Since the liquidity is so good on most matches you won’t have to deal with gappy markets which is something most traders hate.

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Some things to be aware of: Trading Times Since the US open is in the USA (obviously!) this means there is a time difference (obviously!!!) and so you will see that some matches will be starting at unsociable hours (1-2am+). I know some professional traders adjust their body clocks for these tournaments however I don’t expect everyone to do that. So just be aware that it might not be possible for you to trade every single match if that is your aim. The first matches of the day start from 4pm usually which should mean you get a decent amount of matches on at a reasonable hour. Courtsiders This is something you are probably aware of but is worth reminding of. Courtsiders are those sitting by the side of the court at the tennis matches and trading from there. This means they will see and react to everything before you can. So if you think you can quickly scalp a few ticks when a player scores a point then think again! There is a good post about this on the Sports Trading Life website worth reading if you are interested.

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Within this book we will be looking at some of the recent trends from the past 5 years of the US Open. Whilst previous trends are not a definite indicator of future performance they

are something which should never be ignored.

How you use the trends is down to you. Everyone uses different trading strategies and betting styles but just remember that “the trend is your friend”!

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Men's Winners Market

So first thing is first, Who is going to win the US Open 2011? In my view there are only three possible winners. Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Andy Murray is slightly edging into the equation but I still think he doesn’t have what it takes to beat the other three in a grand slam final if it came to it. As much as I would love to be proved wrong! Novak Djokovic (2.70)

If I was writing this just a week ago then I would suggest that the value on Djokovic had gone. However, Novak had a torrid time in the final of the Cincinnati Open and was forced to retire with a shoulder injury against Andy Murray. This has led to a few doubters forcing his price up from 2.30 to the current price of 2.70. All reports suggest that his shoulder injury should clear up by the time of the US open and so we should expect to see the real Djokovic in this tournament. He has had a fantastic

year as we all know and I believe it will only be something such as an injury that will prevent him from winning this tournament too. His nearest challenger is Rafael Nadal however Novak currently holds the upper hand against him after beating him the last 4 times they played. Most notably in the final of Wimbledon and also the Madrid Masters final. Nadal even admitted after Wimbledon that currently he “cant beat him” and needs to do more work in order to do so. For those who are cautious, you can wait to see how Djokovic plays in his first match in order to see if he is definitely over his injury before backing him. Rafael Nadal (5.90) As mentioned above, the fact that Djokovic currently has a stranglehold over Nadal has been well documented. If all goes to plan then these two are due to meet in the final and so it’s a case of whether Rafael Nadal has found a game plan which can beat the Serbian. However, Nadal is going into this tournament on the back of some dodgy form too and the doubters have forced his price up to a very appealing 5.90. Nadal is the current Champion and he certainly wont be giving up his crown too easily. This looks excellent value for the trade as you have to expect that Nadal will make the semi-finals guaranteed. He should trade a lot lower then the 5.90 currently available.

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Roger Federer (7)

It’s hard to write off one of the best players of all time. Many top pundits have suggested that Federer will never win another grand slam however I wouldn’t want to bet against it. Roger is a tough nut to crack and he has reached at least the semi-finals in the past 7 US open tournaments. He might not be as good as he once was but he is still better then most and he should be in the semi-finals again so expect his odds of 7 to trade lower during the tournament. Also, worth bearing in mind that the US open is a tournament that Federer has

had a good time in down the years, winning it 5 times in a row at some point. My main worry would be if he goes to 5 sets in a Quarter or Semi final match as the younger opponents like Djokovic, Nadal or even Murray should be able to outlast him. This was something that Tsonga showed in Wimbledon when he beat Federer, as once the 5 th set started you could clearly see Federer was beat. Andy Murray (6.6) Some low odds for a man who has never won a grand slam before and it might be too much of an ask for him to break his duck in the US open too. However, it seems that Andy Murray enjoys playing in the USA. He trains a lot in Miami which gets him used to the climate and he famously reached the final in 2008 too. I would stick my neck on the line and say that if Murray is ever going to win a grand slam then it will be the US Open. He is also going into this tournament in decent form having won the Cincinnati tournament last week beating Fish and an injured Djokovic on the way. That being said, Andy Murray has proved to be “Unbackable” in recent years and has seen a lot of punters lose a lot of money. Just when you think he is on fire he ends up getting knocked out in one of the early rounds, last year he exited this tournament in the 3rd round. So I would be very cautious about backing Andy Murray in this and I would want at least 10-1 before I do.

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For The Trade A good strategy for trading the winners market is normally to back really high odds and lay them at lower odds as the tournament progresses. Therefore, we want to look for outsiders that we believe will do well in this tournament. Tsonga (38)

Tsonga has been in great form this year and starting to look like the real deal. He reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon and beat Federer along the way despite being 2 sets down. I can’t imagine any of the top seeds wanting to play him and he should certainly reach the quarter finals of this tournament. If he does then you can expect him to trade around the 12 mark which should make for a decent back to lay.

Fish (44)

Fish has always been a good player but it’s only in the recent months that he is showing signs of being a real threat to the top seeds. Like Tsonga, he is certainly a player that none of the top seeds will fancy playing against and he has it in him to spring a shock. He is also American so he will have the crowd behind him, however if that is an advantage or not is quite debatable! 44 is a good price and it wouldn’t be a total surprise if Fish made the

quarter or semi-finals!

Going Dutch?The last 26 grand slams have been won by one of Djokovic, Nadal or Federer with the only failure being when Federer was surprisingly beaten by Del Potro in the 2009 US open.So if you think that one of those three will win again then you can dutch them, which basically means you back them all for an equal profit. Doing this on Betfair is currently paying out at odds of 1.46 which is certainly worth having a think about!

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Men's round by round trends

Those who bet Tennis regularly will know there are certain tournaments which can favour the underdog. From reading forums it seems that there are many people that think the US Open is one of those tournaments. Reason being that since its such a big tournament you will find even the low ranked players trying their best and you will see more shocks. Also, when shocks happen in the opening rounds it is often highlighted more in the media which might lead to a belief that there are “lots of shocks in the early rounds”. Well you can see the breakdown below of how underdogs get on in the early rounds of the tournaments and your potential profit/loss if you do so. Backing Underdogs in early rounds

These are the results if you backed all underdogs with a £100 stake and based on Bet365 starting odds. Matches with even favourites (1.80+) are ignored. So from looking at this it seems that this is a tournament which doesn’t favour the underdog too much and so when looking to back an underdog to win outright you had better have a good reason for doing so. The trend is strongly in favour of the favourites in rounds one and two but swings slightly more in favour of the underdogs in rounds 3 and 4. So from a trading perspective it would make sense to use trading strategies which favour the favourites in rounds 1 & 2 and then use strategies which go against the favourites in rounds 3 & 4. If you are hoping to straight bet on an underdog then it seems that rounds 3 or 4 are the best rounds to do so!

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Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4

2010 -£1,150.00 -£1,150.00 £470.00 -£590.00

2009 -£1,960.00 -£1,720.00 -£300.00 £220.00

2008 -£1,208.00 -£1,685.00 £97.00 £187.00

2007 -£2,300.00 -£1,150.00 -£160.00 £175.00

2006 -£2,460.00 -£299.00 -£438.00 -£75.00

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Backing The Favourites In Early RoundsSo looking at the above table you might be forgiven for thinking that you could then turn a decent profit from blindly backing all the favourites in rounds 1 & 2. At first I thought I had found an angle however due to the low price of all the favourites this is a slightly risky strategy. It only takes this years US open to have a few more shocks then normal to leave you facing a hefty loss!

Round 1 Round 22010 -£502.00 £149.002009 £6.00 -£75.002008 -£589.00 £206.002007 £204.00 £116.002006 £62.00 -£589.00

These are the results if you backed all favourites with a £100 stake and based on Bet365 starting odds. Matches with even favourites (1.80+) are ignored.

So whilst the trend is still in favour of the favourites in the early rounds, you should still be very cautious when backing a favourite at this stage.

Backing The Favourites in Quarter Finals

When looking over these statistics it seems clear that there is a strong bias towards favourites in the quarter final stage in the past 5 years. The table below outlines how much profit you would have made by backing each favourite with £100 stake at this stage of the tournament. These are based on Bet365 starting prices.

Profit/Loss2010 £52.002009 £92.002008 £125.002007 £94.002006 £11.00

In the past 5 years only one underdog has managed to win a match at this stage of the tournament which could be quite significant. 2006 was the year this happened and a profit was still achieved. A good strategy at this stage could simply be to back all the favourites!

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Men's Conclusion

As I am a trader and looking at this tournament from a trading perspective I can use these trends to base my in-play trading game plan on when approaching certain matches.

So in rounds 1 & 2 I will certainly be looking to back favourites and trade them at lower odds. This might be from the start or when they are a break point or even a set down. Its important to obviously take each match as it comes and judge it based on what is actually happening but I will be very confident in backing favourites at this stage due to the long term statistics being on my side.

During rounds 3 & 4, I expect my strategies will change slightly and I will look to start opposing short priced favourites in particular. Remember I am trading and so I am not looking for underdogs to actually win the match overall but just for the favourite to trade higher in-play. With statistics showing that underdogs generally play best in these rounds I can be confident when opposing favourites at this stage.

With the Quarter finals stat being so overwhelming it would make sense to stick with it and back favourites at this stage. Fortunately, by this point of the tournament we should see the same old familiar faces taking part and formulating a trading plan should be much easier anyway.

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Women's Winners MarketThe Women's winners market is traditionally quite hard to predict. The form of women's tennis players can be quite erratic and so its hard to make a prediction before the tournament. I have outlined three players below which really should do well and are safe bet or trade.

Serena Williams (2.60)

A pretty low price for Serena and you would probably have to be quite brave to back her at these odds however with Kim Clijsters not taking part in this tournament there is a great opportunity for Williams to really tell the world that she is back. Wimbledon was disappointing for Serena as she went out in the fourth round however I don’t think you should read too much into that. After being out for a year and returning almost immediately into a grand slam it was probably to be expected. With two extra months of matches and training under her belt you should see the real Serena Williams return in

the US open and it seems that the markets agree with that too. On top form, Serena might even give some of the men's players a run for their money and so if the reports are correct and her form is back then we should expect to see her win this tournament.

In my view, the low price is incredibly off putting. There doesn’t seem to be too much room for manoeuvre with it either. I expect if you backed that price at the start it wont trade much lower until at least the semi-finals so its probably not even worth the trade either. Remember, if you want to make money from gambling its not always about finding winners but finding them at good value and I don’t think such a low price on Serena Williams can be seen as value.

Kvitova (13)

So if you are looking for value then this could be where it is at. Kvitova is going into this tournament on the back of winning Wimbledon and with some solid form behind her. The main reason the markets are pricing her so high is due to the fact that she hasn’t yet proven to be a strong player on the hard courts. Kvitova is certainly one that is looking good for a back to lay as you have to expect she will make the quarter finals minimum. You will also see a massive drop in her odds if Serena Williams suffers a shock early exit at some point too.

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Sharapova (7.6)

Here is another long price which should shorten. Sharapova reached the final in Wimbledon before losing to Kvitova and has a decent track record on the hard court surface. You wont go too far wrong with backing both the above ladies and perhaps laying off if either face Serena Williams.

Conclusion

Personally, I think I will stay away from trading or betting on this market before the tournament has begun. I will keep an eye on Serena Williams form in the early stages and if there is any doubt then I will lay her at the available odds. The beauty of this market is that if she ever does get eliminated then you win your whole stake with no need to trade out.

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Women's Round by round Trends

We decided to have a look at the round by round trends in the Women's tournament to see if there were any trends worth following. Unfortunately, we were only able to get data going back to 2007 which isn’t ideal.

Backing All Underdogs with £100 stakeRound 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Q-Finals

2010 -£1,640.00 £770.00 -£1,075.00 £77.00 -£400.002009 -£2,615.00 £962.00 £387.00 -£610.00 -£150.002008 -£1,773.00 £372.00 -£128.00 £52.00 -£400.002007 -£1,891.00 -£2,005.00 £1,012.00 -£800.00 -£400.00

Backing All Favourites with £100 stake

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Q-FInals2010 -£160.00 -£528.00 £124.00 -£105.00 £87.002009 -£206.00 -£262.00 -£128.00 £270.00 -£28.002008 -£233.00 -£276.00 -£185.00 -£133.00 £120.002007 -£52.00 £49.00 -£587.00 £196.00 £166.00

Conclusion

From looking at this, there doesn’t seem to be any significant trends in rounds 1-4 that are worth following and so based on this you will have to simply take each match as it comes.

It is worth noting that once the quarter final stage is reached there is once again a strong bias towards the favourites. This is obviously similar to what we noticed in the men's side of the tournament too.

So from looking at these statistics I wont be trading the Women's matches until they reach the quarter final stage. This is because they run at the same time as the Men's matches and there is only so many matches one person can trade. From looking at them both its fair to say that the men’s matches have a more clear trend which can help with trading. The women's tournament looks like a minefield to me!

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