Shortfalls of betting on short-priced Grand Slam favourites

Shortfalls of betting on short-priced Grand Slam favourites

By Jack Ratcliffe Aug 19, 2013

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Wimbledon 2013 had more ups and downs than one of Jerzy Janowicz’s big serves, but for bettors, the most interesting surprise was losing two of the top four players in the opening rounds. Did this mark the end of profitably backing Grand Slam favourites, and what does it mean for the US Open?

Buying money at Grand Slams

The consistent success of the best four tennis players active today – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray – has led to a commonly held belief that backing any of these to win in the early rounds of a Grand Slam is guaranteed profit.

The idea of guaranteed success – also known as “buying money” – is, of course, fictitious. The huge number of variables a tennis player faces means that there’s no certainty of an outcome, as injury, weather, errors and other factors can affect everyone. The odds reflect this, but bettors undervalue unlikely events, and therefore see these as guaranteed money, often building huge parlays.

The idea of guaranteed success – also known as “buying money” – is, of course, fictitious.

For the Big 4 at Wimbledon 2013, it was the first time in many years any of them hadn’t progressed past the first two rounds, with Nadal and Federer simply outplayed by Darcis and Stakhovsky. So are the big four broken?

The “buying money” years

Since the rise to prominence of Nadal and Federer, two of the games greatest ever players, it has generally been considered a safe bet to back them through the first round of any Grand Slam.

Excluding this year’s competition at the All-England club, you have to look back to the French Open in 2003 for the last time that either of these men lost in the 1st round. That’s an incredible 40 Grand Slams where the two have never slipped up.

Each of their odds for winning these early ties average at around 1.03, so backing both would present a profit of 6 per 100 wagered, or on a multiple, 6.90 per Grand Slam.

Over 40 tournaments (and ten years), that’s a total profit of 276 – a much better return than keeping your money in the bank for that period (a generous interest rate of 4% would have offered 40, if the 100 was kept as a year-on-year constant).

Better top four, bigger profits

If you include the recent rise of Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic (and the creation of the Elite Four in tennis), there are 18 Grand Slams where all four have all progressed passed the first round. Betting a multiple on those would have returned 225.91 profit in just five years.

However, this option for easy money was shattered in 2013 by World No. 135 Steve Darcis’ win over Nadal – a sad day for anyone following this betting system (and a worse one for Rafa). This “Black Swan” event would have cost bettors trying to buy money 100, or nearly two and a half years of work.

More daring bettors could have applied this system to the second rounds of Grand Slams, for which the streak was also 18 Grand Slams. The added rounds would have at least double profitability, but again, Wimbledon 2013 provided a disruption. Almost as if trying to prove that the destruction of the top four’s form was a statistical inevitability, Federer was dismissed in the second round by Sergiy Stakhovsky.

Had you been following this tennis-based “buying money” system for both rounds, those two days would have seen you lose 200 – or half your profit in those five years.

Therefore “buying money” on short favourites is effectively a martingale system, where players would need to leave while they were ahead, less they eventually lose everything.

What about the US Open?

So where does this leave the Grand Slam early rounds theory? It’s still statistically probable that the Big Four will continue to progress pass the first two rounds – after all, they are better players than their opponents. Their odds are designed to reflect this, however, and as you can see by the Wimbledon 2013 example, there will always be an occasion when “buying money” falls short and the odds prove – over the long term – that they were correctly valued.

Would betting on the Big 4 to progress in the first round of the US Open return a profit? Probably. But is it worth risking a large amount for a proportionally small return? That’s up to bettors, but after Wimbledon 2013, we know that the answer is not a definite “yes”, and that you can’t buy money.

It’s important to note that grass is a more unpredictable surface than the hard courts of Flushing Meadows for players, who spend most of their season on solid courts, and therefore this could have added to difficulties Nadal and Federer faced. It also favours players with big serves, which further tilts the balance in favour of a player winning by simply having a good day.

Click here to see the latest US Open odds.

*Odds subject to change

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