вторник, 31 марта 2015 г.

Assessing different clay court conditions and strong returners on clay

This clay court tennis betting strategy article focuses on the differing court conditions across the schedule, and the records of strong return players on clay, to identify betting opportunities.

With the ATP & WTA tennis schedule moving from hard court to clay court tennis bettors should be aware of the differences.

Clay events have very different characteristics to the harder surfaces, with fewer service holds, fewer aces and generally much longer rallies. Clay matches are arguably a stronger test of a player’s fitness level than other surfaces. 

The table below illustrates the significant difference in service hold percentage and aces per game between clay courts and other surfaces:

Surface

2 Year mean service hold %

2 Year mean aces per game

ATP

Clay

75.7

0.35

Hard

79.4

0.55

Indoor Hard

80.8

0.58

Grass

83.6

0.65

WTA

Clay

61.9

0.19

Hard

63.8

0.25

Indoor Hard

63.1

0.26

Grass

69.6

0.31

With the difference so evident in the table above, the following table highlights the court speed of each ATP & WTA event for the clay court schedule in 2015 (sorted from fast to slow):

ATP Tournament

Category

2 Year Serivce Hold %

Deviation from Clay Mean %

Madrid

1000

80.2

4.5

Gstaad

250

78.6

2.9

Munich

250

78.2

2.5

Rome

1000

77.7

2

Houston

250

76.6

0.9

French Open

Grand Slam

76.4

0.7

Nice

250

75.5

-0.2

Barcelona

500

74.7

-1

Bucharest

250

74.6

-1.1

Kitzbuhel

250

74.2

-1.5

Hamburg

500

73.5

-2.2

Bastad

250

73.2

-2.5

Casablanca

250

72.4

-3.3

Monte Carlo

1000

72.1

-3.6

Oeiras

250

71.1

-4.6

Umag

250

70.9

-4.8

Bettors should use this information in conjunction with this previous article, which looks at court data for fast and slow courts.

What the clay court data suggests

Interestingly the Madrid Masters/Premier - one of the biggest events on the clay calendar – appears at the top of both the ATP and WTA Tour and clearly has very fast conditions, which is likely to suit bigger servers. It will almost certainly not play as a traditional clay court. 

Conversely, Bastad has low service hold percentages for both Tours, and conditions in Sweden appear to be very slow indeed. This is also the case for both clay events in Morocco (ATP Casablanca and WTA Marrakech).  These events will favour the traditional clay courters.

ATP Gstaad - played at altitude - unsurprisingly shows up as a fast court, although surprisingly Kitzbuhel - which is also played well above sea level - does not.

How strong ATP & WTA returners perform on clay

Particularly in the ATP, certain players have a strong preference towards clay or hard surfaces, which results in a big difference in their results between the two surfaces.

We identified in previous articles how to tell a player who is stronger on return than serve by using the formula (service hold % - break opponent %), with lower figures indicating the player is strong on return. 

From our list of the top ten ATP strong returners, only Matt Ebden isn’t considered close to a clay-courter – meaning the list highlights players who favour clay courts.

In comparison the WTA list is far less biased towards clay-courters, and only Chanelle Scheepers, Sara Errani, Estrella Cabeza Candela and Lourdes Dominguez Lino would be considered much better on the dirt.

The table below illustrates the records of strong ATP and WTA returners on clay in their last 50 matches on the surface, with Pinnacle Sports’ closing prices being used from a £100 hypothetical bet on each players’ match:

Player

Last 50 Clay Matches

Wins

Win %

P/L

ROI

Andujar

50

28

56

446

9.5

Monaco

50

29

58

-453

-9.2

Lorenzi

50

26

52

-741

-16.5

Fognini

50

35

70

1073

21.9

Ferrer

50

39

78

345

7.2

Berlocq

50

32

64

1018

20.8

Ebden

23

6

26

-1075

-71.7

Falla

50

25

50

-761

-16.9

Garcia-Lopez

50

30

60

1444

28.9

Gabashvili

50

31

62

1914

40.7

ATP Returners

473

281

59

3210

6.8

Beck

50

30

60

-836

-16.7

Scheepers

50

28

56

354

7.1

Errani

50

39

78

378

13.1

Radwanska U

50

19

38

-64

-1.7

Hsieh

50

23

46

-574

-27.3

Dolonc

50

24

48

146

5.6

Cabeza Candela

50

27

54

-636

-20.5

Niculescu

50

24

48

-466

-12.6

Koukalova

50

26

52

-868

-18.1

Dominguez Lino

50

33

66

354

7.5

WTA Returners

500

273

55

-2212

-4.4

It’s clear that ATP strong returners have an edge on clay, returning 6.8% from 473 matches. And If we filter out Ebden, who was identified as a player who doesn’t favour clay courts, this increased to 9.5%. 

On this basis, it appears that the markets are under-rating ATP clay courters who are strong on return.

The WTA players list is much more random, and the betting success evident in the ATP is not replicated on the women’s tour. 

However, of the four women’s clay courters previously identified, three - Sara Errani, Lourdes Dominguez Lino and Chanelle Scheepers - were the most profitable from the sample.

Even when including Estrella Cabeza Candela - who has dropped to 300 in the world - they generated a return of investment of 2.25%.

Clay Court betting strategy

The data indicates that clay courters whose strength lies on return are clearly under-rated by the pre-match betting markets and bettors should factor this into their decision making in subsequent clay court tournaments this year.

In addition, tennis bettors should take notice of the differing clay court conditions and note certain events fluctuate quite dramatically from the clay court mean.

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