HomeGalera BlogTennis NewsA Guide to Betting on the Australian Open

What is the Australian Open?

The Australian Open is the first of the four tennis Grand Slam events held each year. It is played in the middle of January, and is held at Melbourne Park, Australia.

As a Grand Slam, the competition has a men's and women's singles event, a men's and women's doubles event and a mixed doubles event. The competition was founded in 1905, making it one of the oldest tournaments in the world. At first it was played on a grass surface until, in 1988, the competition was moved to Melbourne Park and played on special hard courts made of an acrylic material called Rebound Ace that was green in colour. This was used up until 2007 after which it was replaced with another acrylic material called Plexicushion, which was coloured blue and also changed the ITF rating of the surface to be of medium speed. In 2020, the courts were renovated and switched to GreenSet, another type of acrylic resin, though they were kept in the same blue colour as the design from 2008.

Winners of the singles event in the Open take home AUD$2.875 million and receive 2,000 points in the ATP and WTA world rankings. Doubles partners also receive 2,000 points in the ATP and WTA rankings and take home AUD$675,000 or AUD$190,000 for mixed doubles. A win at the Australian Open can propel a top tennis player to the world number one ranking, and will seal their place in history.

The Australian Open has been won by legendary male and female tennis players, including Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Steffi Graff, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, and many more. The surfaces, which are amongst the faster surfaces in the Grand Slam events, can benefit big servers and power hitters, although every year the tournament brings new surprises and a great deal of excitement.

How to bet on the Australian Open

Outright

Tennis fans can make their predictions about who will win the Australian Open early with outright markets. There will be bets for all the top players such as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Anett Kontaveit, and more, to win in the men’s and women’s singles, as well as outright bets for the top men’s, women’s and mixed doubles partners.

Match Win

For individual matches, the simplest bet is on which player will win. There will be odds offered for both contestants and the favourite to win will have the shorter odds.

Handicap of Sets

Punters who want to back the favourite in a match may use handicaps to increase the odds of betting on them. Men’s singles matches are played to a best of 5 sets, whilst women’s singles and all doubles matches are played to a best of 3 sets. When betting on a men’s singles game, a bettor can place a handicap of -1.5 or -2.5 on the favourite, which will require them to win by a 2 or 3 set margin for the bet to win. The higher the handicap, the larger the odds will become.

Handicaps can also be used to back the underdog, in which case +1.5 or +2.5 can be given. This will mean the bet can still win if the underdog does not lose by more than 2 or 3 sets. For matches played to a best of 3 sets, the handicaps that can be given will be -1.5 and +1.5.

Handicap of Games

This bet uses the same concept of handicaps, only it applies to how many games are won in total by the players. There may be a handicap of -6.5 set on Novak Djokovic, and if he wins the match by 6-3, 6-4, and 6-3, the total will be 18-10, meaning that the bet will win as he won by more than 6.5 games. The range of game handicap options will be larger than that of set handicaps.

Set Betting

There may be bets offered on individual sets. These are bets such as which player will win the first set, which player will win the second set, will a player win the first two sets, and also a bet on the correct score after the first two sets.

Over/Under Games

Punters can bet on how many games will be played in a single match. This bet uses the over/under format, which means that there will be multiple betting lines to choose from and a punter can place a bet on whether the match will end with over or under the number of games indicated in the line.

Game Props

These bets single out the fine details in a game. They include bets such as total aces in a match, total deuces in a match, will a player win after going 2 sets down, total number of games in a specific set, correct score of sets, and more.

Live Bets

Live bets are highly popular amongst tennis punters as they can place bets as they watch a match. There will be bets on the game as a whole, which will be offered with odds that change dynamically, as well as bets on what will happen in the immediate future. These may include bets such as which player will win the upcoming game, will either player win two games in a row, will there be a deuce in the following game, how many aces will be scored in the set, and so on.