Assessing Challenger Tour players when they travel outside their home continent

With the Challenger Tour schedule crossing five continents, this article assesses players’ results when travelling outside their home continent. Find out if tournament location really matters.

The challenge of Challenger Tour tennis

Challenger Tour players – due to a lack of prize money – tend to compete in tournaments close to home and on favoured surfaces. The impact of travel costs compared to tournament prize money, ultimately dictates players’ scheduling.

South Americans are undervalued away from home but overrated in South America

Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that when a Challenger Tour player makes the extra effort to travel long distances to participate in an event, he is doing so because he is motivated to succeed, and feels he has a reasonable chance to do so, almost certainly in conditions that favour him.

Given the unique nature of Challenger tennis it may be profitable to assess the records of players when they enter tournaments that are not in their native continent.  Are players likely to perform to the best of their abilities or does the extra financial pressure and travel fatigue contribute to poor results? Furthermore, how does the betting market react to these scenarios?

The following table shows the results of Challenger players ranked 101-150 in the last 12 months, both in and out of their home continent. A hypothetical 100 bet was applied for all matches and all prices used were Pinnacle Sports’ closing prices: 

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Location not that relevant

Overall the players have a positive return with 3104 generated from stakes of 167,500 (1.85% ROI). Players competing in home continents generated 1.86% ROI from a total stake of 104,600, while players participating in other continents had a 1.84% ROI from a stake of 62,900.

North American players struggle away from their home continent

With these figures incredibly consistent throughout the three scenarios, we can assume that the location of the event is not particularly relevant on the Challenger Tour betting market. 

Despite this there was a 62.5% win percentage away from a player’s home continent, compared to 64.1% in a player’s home continent. This is logical however; players normally travel outside their continent to compete in bigger events, with higher prize money, and a better quality of opponent.

Challenger Tour players who play well on the road

As is always the case with tennis betting, focus on individual player tendencies is recommended, and the table above highlights players who have excelled away from their own continent. The following players generated over 500 more profit from matches away from their home continent, compared to those at home, in the last 12 months:

Player

Profit

Farrukh Dustov

1,115

Ante Pavic

781

James Duckworth

762

Pere Riba

731

Daniel Gimeno-Traver

632

Horacio Zeballos

530

Challenger Tour players who prefer home soil

In comparison certain players prefer home comforts. Previous research, for example, has shown that US-based ATP players, in particular, have historically struggled in tournaments away from North America. The following players generated over 400 more profit in matches in their home continent, compared to other continents:

Player

Profit

Alexander Zverev

1,582

Yuichi Sugita

1,013

Denis Kudla

704

Alexandr Nedovyesov

402

South Americans overrated at home

It is also useful for bettors to assess how players fared based on their home continent. The following table assesses the records of players based on their home continent:

From this table, we can see that Asian players perform better in Asia, and are perhaps generally undervalued by the market, with a positive return on investment in both scenarios.

European players are consistent regardless of event location. South Americans are undervalued away from home but overrated in South America, while – as mentioned earlier – North American players struggled away from their home continent.

When betting on the Challenger Tour bettors should consider individual players’ records, and in general, North and South American based players as part of a balanced betting strategy.