Tennis Betting Tips & Strategies for Beginners

Tennis is currently enjoying unparalleled growth around the world as both a participant and spectator sport. Particularly in the former Eastern European communist states, tennis has become the sport of choice for a whole generation of young sports enthusiasts.

Despite its increasing popularity around the world, tennis does not enjoy a high profile as a betting sport. Whilst many people associate sports betting with horseracing and football, the fact of the matter is that tennis is arguably one of the best sports in the world to bet on.

If you consider yourself to be something of a tennis expert and are interested in finding how you can convert your knowledge into dividends in the tennis betting markets, then you need to look no further than the following basic guide to tennis betting.

•Match Betting is the most basic betting option available in tennis, and placing a match bet couldn't be easier.
Simply pick the winner in any given match. If your prediction is correct you'll get paid out the odds on your bet.

Tennis match betting slips are easy to make sense of: the slip will feature the name of each player (or players in doubles), and all you have to do is check the box beside your chosen player's name.

•There are usually several other betting opportunities available in any tennis match.

A popular option is the handicap bet which works in much the same way as a match bet. The difference is that you can choose between a bet which deducts games from the stronger player's final score and a bet which adds games to the weaker player's final score.

Handicap betting makes a contest more even from a betting point of view but generally offers lower odds.

•Set betting allows you to bet on the final score of a tennis match by sets.

You can bet on any variation of the balance of sets won in any match, and this betting option carries some good odds.

•A simple variation on set betting is betting on the winner of a specific set.

Whether it's the first or third set, the bet works in the same way as a matched bet - simply pick the player you think will win the set in question.

•If you're feeling ambitious and are interested in high odds stakes, you can explore several other interesting tennis betting options.

These include correctly predicting the number of games in a match. Each bookmaker usually offers its special bets to spice up your experience of tennis betting.

•Last but not least, betting on an outright winner is a very popular tennis betting option.

Like most tennis bets this is very simple, all you have to do is select the player you think will win any given tournament. Odds tend to be highest before the tournament begins, and will decrease during the tournament as players are eliminated.

Now that you have a grip on the basics of tennis betting, you'll be able to add to the excitement of world-class tennis by backing your favorite players in the betting markets. This means the next time your favorite player wins on the court, you too could win in the betting markets.

Events such as the 2009 Davis Cup and the 2010 Wimbledon Tennis Championship offer exciting opportunities for any sports fan to test their knowledge of the game with a few bets.