BACKING THE FAVOURITE WHEN LOSING

BACKING THE FAVOURITE WHEN LOSING

A favourite tactic of novice tennis traders is to lay the underdog when leading, or back the favourite when losing. Effectively they are the same thing. You see a lot of people advocating this trade on Twitter – I’ve noticed it’s a particular favourite of cricket traders making their way over to the tennis markets.

They think – well the favourite was a favourite pre-match because the market thought they were the better player before the match started and surely they’ll come through in the end. I hate to ruin that perception but to be brutally honest, it’s a load of rubbish. Favourites do lose, and they lose more than the odd occasion. Furthermore, as we will see later on in the

Handbook in the ‘At the end of the first set’ chapter, my statistics prove that the market support for this entry point means that often you are backing the favourite at an artificially low price, sometimes up to 20 ticks below the true market value.


I’m not saying this isn’t ever a viable entry point, but you need to consider a few things before making this entry.

1- Does the favourite have a good record of coming back either from break deficits or from set deficits?

2- Does the underdog have a history of choking in pressure situations such as when on the verge of a big win or when serving for the match?

3- What is the biggest win that the underdog has achieved in their career or in the last year? If the favourite is of a significantly higher level than that, perhaps this could still be a viable trade.

4- Does the favourite have a good record of beating much lower ranked players?

5- Is the underdog a bad server or does the favourite have a strong return game? If either (or preferably both of these) are applicable then we may be able to enter at this point. We may not get (or need to get) the result of the favourite winning the match but if the favourite comes back and gets a break back, we can still exit the trade profitably.

6- Does the favourite have a high level of motivation to win this match? Player motivation tends to be highest in Grand Slams and Masters (1000) events (the women’s equivalent of these is WTA Premier events) as there is more money and ranking points on offer.

Therefore if a favourite is losing to an underdog in a low-profile 250/WTA International event we need to be very wary of their motivation. This can especially be the case in the more ‘exotic’ venues, where a few days on the beach or by the pool can be considered much more of a priority by some top players.

Bearing in mind a heavy pre-match favourite may still be trading odds-on even after losing the first set, backing them has a big risk attached to it because their price still can rise much more than it can fall. I would strongly recommend at least a few of the above conditions are met before you make this trade.

No comments