Which ATP players perform in the first round of events?
By Dan Weston Jul 8, 2014
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First round matches in Tennis tournaments are often considered by bettors and the media to be potential ‘banana skins’ for big players, with players often having various levels of preparation for their opening matches in an event. This tennis betting article assesses how efficient the market is in the first round for ATP top 30 players in the last 12 months.
A first round match is often a difficult proposition for bettors. Players will regularly have different levels of preparation and fitness coming into a tournament. Many situations exist where one player might trying to back up a strong showing the week before – which then requires a further opinion on whether they are fatigued or not – and their opponent could be in a completely different position, either coming back from injury, switching surface or on a bad run of defeats.
The variety of scenarios that can apply to a first round match mean that detailed research is complex and in cases like these, it’s much more difficult for the market to be efficient. There are often cases where a big-name player is often a bigger price than expected in the first round of a tournament, particularly in a 250 level event where player motivation isn’t often as big, due to the lower financial and ranking point incentives.
Due to this, for the purposes of this article, a sample was created of the top 30 ATP players from 3rd July 2013, to 3rd July, 2014. The sample comprised of first round ATP and Grand Slam matches, not including instances where the player received a bye – only genuine first round matches were included. A hypothetical 100 bet was placed in all cases and all prices used were Pinnacle Sports’ closing prices. Only matches where at least one set was completed were included in the sample.
The following table indicates the results of the sample, by player:-
Player
Rank
Matches
Wins
Win %
P/L
ROI
Worst Defeat
Nadal
1
7
7
100.00
26
3.7
N/A
Djokovic
2
6
6
100.00
9
1.5
N/A
Wawrinka
3
9
5
55.56
262
-29.1
Roger-Vasselin, 1.13
Federer
4
6
6
100.00
16
2.7
N/A
Murray
5
7
7
100.00
40
5.7
N/A
Berdych
6
10
8
80.00
122
-12.2
Karlovic, 1.22
Ferrer
7
11
11
100.00
245
22.3
N/A
Del Potro
8
6
5
83.33
-4
0.7
Devvarman, 1.07
Raonic
9
8
8
100.00
133
16.6
N/A
Gulbis
10
17
12
70.59
179
-10.5
Haider-Maurer, 1.05
Isner
11
14
10
71.43
7
0.5
Klizan, 1.14
Nishikori
12
12
9
75.00
12
1.0
Evans, 1.10
Dimitrov
13
18
13
72.22
18
1.0
Sousa, 1.07
Gasquet
14
10
7
70.00
194
-19.4
Pospisil, 1.20
Fognini
15
16
12
75.00
133
8.3
Ram, 1.18
Youzhny
16
18
13
72.22
-58
-3.2
Querrey, 1.53
Tsonga
17
8
8
100.00
296
37.0
N/A
Anderson
18
15
10
66.67
-32
-2.1
Lacko, 1.30
Dolgopolov
19
19
14
73.68
668
35.2
Gimeno-Traver, 1.57
Haas
20
11
7
63.64
1
0.1
Garcia-Lopez, 1.50
Monfils
21
16
12
75.00
105
-6.6
J Pospisil, 1.07
Robredo
22
13
11
84.62
271
20.8
Fognini, 1.47
Bautista-Agut
23
23
21
91.30
954
41.5
Tursunov, 1.18
Verdasco
24
16
10
62.50
-81
-5.1
Przysiezny, 1.27
Janowicz
25
12
6
50.00
382
-31.8
M Gonzalez, 1.08
Lopez
26
21
17
80.95
701
33.4
Benneteau, 1.96
Almagro
27
10
6
60.00
136
-13.6
Dolgopolov, 1.33
Kohlschreiber
28
18
15
83.33
381
21.2
Matosevic
Cilic
29
13
12
92.31
284
21.8
Matosevic, 1.16
Granollers
30
21
12
57.14
421
20.0
Copil, 1.25
Merely looking at the individual player stats on this table makes for fascinating reading, with the likes of Stan Wawrinka, Ernests Gulbis, Richard Gasquet and Jerzy Janowicz all looking very vulnerable when playing first round matches.
Quite interestingly, none of the four players highlighted have stellar stats for breaking opponents or recovering break deficits, so it’s logical to assume that in these cases, motivation is an issue when a match isn’t going their way, or their preparation for these matches isn’t ideal.
Seven players managed to achieve a 100% record for winning in the first round, with six of these in the top ten. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was the solitary player outside the top ten to achieve this feat, and it will be fascinating to see if this continues despite his general decline in 2014. If this is the case, he would look to be an excellent betting proposition in first round matches.
It was interesting to see that Alexandr Dolgopolov had a superb record in first round matches over the last 12 months, which is in contrast to other periods of his career. Joining him and Tsonga with excellent first round records include Tommy Robredo, Roberto Bautista-Agut, Feliciano Lopez, Philipp Kohlschreiber, and Marcel Granollers (who despite a low win percentage managed to win first round matches as an underdog).
Matches
Wins
Win %
P/L
ROI
Top 10
87
75
86.21
-98
-1.13
11-20
141
103
73.05
851
6.04
21-30
163
122
74.85
2308
14.16
Overall
391
300
76.73
3061
7.83
The table above illustrates the statistics by ranking. As can be seen from the stats, blanket backing top 10 players in the first round produced a very small negative return (-1.1%). However, backing players from 11-30 had superb returns, particularly from a blind-backed scenario. This would indicate that in the last 12 months, the market was highly inefficient pricing top 30 players in the first round of events, with a positive return of investment of 7.83% generated from a decent sample of 391 matches.
It would therefore indicate that if a player’s price appears ‘too good to be true’ in the first round of a tournament, it’s probably a mistake by the market as opposed to any other factor that isn’t immediately apparent. Taking this into account as part of a balanced betting strategy is highly recommended.
Dan Weston is a freelance tennis writer who, along with producing expert content for Pinnacle Sports, also produces his own tennis rating system, and trading analysis, which can be found at www.tennisratings.co.uk.
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