Learn How to Bet on the ATP Finals

The ATP Finals have been held across the world, with Japan, Germany, France, Spain, China, Australia, the UK, Italy, Sweden and Portugal all hosting the tournament. Since 2000, the ATP Finals has been exclusively played on hard courts, and it has predominantly been played on indoor courts. Roger Federer holds the record for the most wins with 6 ATP Finals titles racked up between 2003 and 2011. Novak Djokovic has one less title with 5 ATP Final titles, the last of which came in 2015. This year’s reigning champion is the German tennis player Alexander Zverev, who also won in 2018.

Betting on the ATP Finals

There are many different ways to betting on the ATP Finals, and this article will explain the key differences between them. To help you understand the differences, we have provided some helpful examples.

Moneyline

Moneyline is one of the simplest form of sports betting. A moneyline bet is simply putting a bet on a player or team to win the match. In this instance, you could place a bet of a player, such as Novak Djokovic to win his first match. Each round of matches will offer you the chance to play a moneyline bet on who will win a match.

Bet on Sets (Handicap)

A set in tennis is won by the player or team who reaches 6 games first, with at least a 2 game lead. If the scores become tied at 6 games each, then a tiebreak is used to determine the winner of the set. Matches in the ATP Finals consist of 3 sets, and you can bet on a player winning each one.

Handicap betting is where things get interesting. In handicap bettering, the bookmaker provides one player with a handicap (or head start). Let's say for example, in last year’s final Daniel Medvedev starts with a 1.5 set advantage over Alexander Zverev. At the end of the best of three-set match, the number of sets each player has is added together, and the betting handicap is taken into account. In this example, Zverev won the match 2 sets to zero, so the handicap bet on Medvedev would have lost, as it would have been 2-1.5 to Zverev. In the 2020 ATP Final, if you used a 1.5 sets handicap bet on runner up Dominic Thiem, he would have lost the match 2 sets to 1, but your handicap bet would have won as taking the 1.5 set handicap into account the score would be 2-2.5 to Thiem.

Overall Games (Handicap)

Overall games (handicap) betting is very similar to the handicap betting on sets explained above. However, in this example you bet on games instead of sets. For this example, we will use the 2016 ATP Final between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. In this match, Andy Murray won 6 games to 3 in the first set and 6 games to 4 in the second set. This means that he won 12 games in the match, to Djokovic's 7. If you placed a handicap bet on overall games for Djokovic for +4.5 games, it would have lost, as the handicap and his games tally reached 11.5 games, which is short of Murray's 12 games. If you betted on Djokovic at +5.5 games, the overall games handicap bet would have won.

Winner of Each Set

Winner of each set bets are much easier to understand that handicap betting. As explained earlier, matches at the ATP Finals consist of a best of three sets matches. With these bets, you will place a bet on who you think will win each set. Unless there are any injuries or retirements, each match is guaranteed to last at least 2 sets, giving you multiple betting opportunities for each match.

Over/Under Bets (Games, Sets)

Over and under bets are a popular bet type, and for tennis betting you can choose to use them for games or sets. For example, if you think that the match will be very one sided and the match will be over in two sets you can place a bet that there will be under 2.5 sets in the match. If you think the match will go to a final and decider set, then you can place a bet for over 2.5 sets. Similarly, for games, if you think a player will struggle to win many games, you can bet that they will win less than 4.5 games in the match.

Outrights

Similar to moneyline bets, outright bets are an easy concept, but there is one very important difference. With outright bets, you are placing a bet on that player winning the ATP Finals tournament, not an individual match. For example, if you placed an outright bet on Alexander Zverev for the 2021 ATP Finals you would have won as he won the tournament.

Live Betting

Live betting can be fast and thrilling way to bet, especially on tennis as things move so quickly. If a player is behind in a match, but you think they will win the match this can be an excellent way of making money, as the odds you receive are likely to be much better than they were before the match started. For example, 2020 ATP champion Daniel Medvedev lost the first set in his final 4 games to 6. If you placed a live bet at the end of the first set for him to win, you could have received much better odds, and therefore much larger winnings.

Tennis is a fast moving and enjoyable spectator sport, and as you can see from the above, there are some fun and exciting ways of betting on the ATP finals.