Here are a few top tennis betting tips to get you started:

•    Surface Matters: The vast majority of tournaments these days are played on hard courts. However, several are played on clay, and there are a few, such as Wimbledon, which are still played on grass. As you analyze the match, take note of each player’s record on the surface for that particular tournament.

•    Hanging Tough: Stamina is key in a tennis match. The players could be out there for four sets of seven points each, at a maximum. Take a look through their recent history to determine whether they’ve been able to win the long matches. Have they come back from losing a set and gone on to win convincingly? Also, do they have any injuries which might slow them down in the later parts of the match?

•    Niggling Injuries: Speaking of injuries, knees, hips,  shoulders and wrists are critical equipment for a tennis match. If a player is coming off an injury to any of these areas, be careful when betting for them to last a long while in the tournament.

•    Head to Head: Though this can be tricky and is not always a reliable indicator, it’s helpful to go back through history to determine a player’s record against the opponent. This might sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised how often bettors overlook this. Each player is unique; even if one is seeded far lower than the other, he or she may have a weakness that the opponent has been able to exploit in their head-to-head play.

Tennis isn’t much different than most other sports when it comes to the types of bets you can place on a match. If you want to bet on a particular player to win a match, you’ll place a match-up bet. Each player has a given odds of winning a given match, which directly correspond to how much money you’ll win if they win the match. Players with higher odds, like 650, will pay much better than someone at, say, 350.

It’s also possible to place an over/under bet on a tennis match. In this type of bet, you’re betting on the whether the match will go over or under a given number of sets. Bookies will also give a point spread for each match, which you can bet over or under. For example, your bet could be that Federer will win in under four sets and over the spread.

If you’re not familiar with many tennis players, it’s easy to get a snapshot of a player’s results over the years. Any sports website can give you all the data you need. When betting on a match, make sure to take into account the surface on which the match will be played, as well as any prior encounters between the two players.

Match betting is fun, but if you want to take a bigger gamble, you can try a parlay bet with several players in a tournament. Though there will certainly be upsets, you can generally do well by betting on the top players. In a parlay, you need to win all your bets to win the entire wager, so bet with care.

Tennis betting is a great change of pace from baseball, football or other sports, and correctly placed parlays can be very lucrative. So the next time you’re looking for something different, try your hand at tennis betting.

Currently bwin.com are offering sports betting odds on a special bet for the French Open which is who will finish higher in the French Open. The candidates are Roger Federer at 3/1, Rafael Nadal at 11/50 and for odds for them both exiting the tournament in the same round at 13/1. The high odds for both exiting the tournament in the same round is because one or both are likely to make the final as they will not meet until the final as the number one and number two seeds.

Nadal’s relief at winning his sixth consecutive Monte Carlo tennis tournament was evident by his exuberant celebrations and this was his first title in 11th months. Partly due to a dip in form and partly due to injury problems he has not been the massive force in Tennis that he was during 2007 – 2009 where he denied Federer so many additional Grand Slam wins. This win propels him back into the top category of players and his amazing record at the French Open suggests when the Tennis odds from bwin very soon he will probably be odds on favourite.

Andy Murray has fallen by the wayside in terms of challenging for a Grand Slam and has not looked nearly as hungry or convincing since he lost to Federer in the Australian Open final. He looks set to fall down the ranking list if he continues to suffer defeats in the early rounds of the big tournaments. Roger Federer is still dangerous, but has not dominated the game for some time and I think Nadal would beat him in the final if played now. Federer’s success at the French came against Soderling, I am unsure if he can beat Nadal at his best on clay. Previous results between the two players suggest not also.

In the ladies tournament, things are more open. Victoria Azarenka has tremendous resolve and is due for a good run in a major tournament if only she can keep the crowd on side as her temper can let herself down when the pressure is on. Na Li from China has done well in recent Grand Slams and has a chance, as does Clijsters, Kusnetsova, Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Jankovic. Most of the betting action will surround perennial Grand Slam challengers the Williams sisters who will be tough to beat. British hopes for a decent run in the ladies event lie with Elena Baltacha who is riding high at a career high 59th in the world rankings. Anne Keothavong was also ranked highly before a serious knee injury last summer so hopefully she can also do well as she continues her recovery.

In the Men’s game I would watch the form of Nadal, Djokovic and Gael Monfils carefully. Playing in front of his home crowd on his favourite surface could see Monfils have a surprise run with good odds. Gael has been widely tipped and has done well in the French Open in the past. As well as Clijsters, Henin, Williams V & S, Dementieva and Jankovic look carefully at the form of Wozniacki and Azarenka in the ladies tournament.

I like Victoria Azarenka to have a really good run if she gets a decent draw. She is fast and determined, just like Nadal and could do very well. She will probably be around 16/1 when the odds are released and could be worth an each way wager early.

By Malcolm Clarke

I will explain what I mean a little later but in a sport like horse racing for example then things get a little more complex by comparison. There will be multiple runners in all events so picking the winner needs to be approached using clearly different strategies. In horse racing then you can use the complexity of the sport to your advantage if you are shrewd enough.

In sports betting though you can often take advantage of differences in bookmaker opinion in events where the competitors are basically on a par with each other. If two boxers were about to fight for a title and the betting market found them hard to separate then a profitable opportunity may arise here or at least one where the punter can find value.

If the professional opinion of many is that this is an even fight then the fair odds would be 2.00 for either competitor. If odds compilers and bookmakers want to argue the difference then fair enough but the variables are so complex that finding exact theoretical probabilities is impossible in betting.

So often there will be betting firms who will go longer than 2.00 for one of the fighters and maybe as long as 2.20! If this is a true 50/50 fight then 2.20 is value and is no different than getting 2.20 on a coin flip. This is one of the advantages of sports betting in that if you are shrewd then you can use professional opinion and the plethora of betting firms to your advantage.

Of course the good thing about sports betting in this way is that you don’t just have to bet on boxing, it could just as easily be snooker, tennis, cricket, football or any other sport where there can only be two possible winners. Golf would be prohibited from this category unless you were betting on the actual head to head matches. I know of one professional punter called “Dave” who makes between £50,000-£75,000 a year betting like this.

The key behind his operation is in identifying the true even money shots and this isn’t as easy as what it sounds on the surface. It is a full time job for Dave but the money that he makes is all tax free so in that sense he is making very good money.

In fact I believe that I even mentioned on my blog how finding good value prices and tissue prices is easier when you know that a price is wrong and it is easier to know that prices are wrong than to know what their correct theoretical price may be.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Tennis betting fans have a number of special bets on offer from bwin this year. You can bet on the player who will have the fastest serve throughout the tournament if you like to follow the progress of the big hitters. Andy Roddick is favourite for this bet at odds of 2.60 with big hitting fellow American Taylor Dent second favourite at 2.65. The Americans dominate the market with 6ft 9inch John Isner as third favourite. Isner uses his high vertical base and causes many players problems with his size around the court. A pro since 2007 he will be hoping to go further in the tournament than a first round he achieved last year. His odds are 4.70 to be the fastest server at the Australian Open.

Another interesting special Tennis bet is one on who will serve the most Aces between Ivo Karlovic and Roger Federer. Federer is not known for his serve power but he hits many Aces when on form. He has an amazing record of making every grand slam semi-finals for the last five years. With a handicap of +0.5 Federer has odds of 1.69 to hit more Aces than Karlovic. Ivo does not last as long as Federer in most tournaments, but hits more pure Aces per match. It is an interesting bet. If you believe Federer may be susceptible to a defeat in this tournament then perhaps the 2.04 odds for Karlovic to serve more Aces is a good bet for you. He made the third round of the tournament in 2008 so will need a good run to match Federer.

There are a number of special heads up matches with selected Tennis players squaring off against each other to see who wins the most games. You need to look at how often the players win matches in straight sets. For example, Del Potro +0.5 has odds of 1.85 versus Murray -0.5 at the same odds of 1.85. Murray often struggles from the third round onwards but gets through in four and five set matches when playing well. Del Potro is the on-form player in the world and generally wins in straight sets far into the tournament. Because Murray usually plays more sets in the tournaments and has been known to struggle in first and second round matches on occasion but still come through I would tip Murray at 1.85 to win more games. There are a lot of other combinations of players that you can research in a similar way and all offer intriguing decisions.

My favourite special bet is choosing an individual player out of the list and selecting how far you think they will go in the tournament. For example, Andy Murray has odds of 3.97 to make the final or win, 3.75 for making it to the quarter or semi final and 2.65 to go out between the first and last 16 rounds. All of the top players have odds on similar outcomes.

Thanks to the special tennis betting odds from bwin the start of the Tennis season is sure to go off with a bang.

By Malcolm Clarke

Nikolai Davydenko 1.85 Robin Soderling 1.85

My tennis tip for this match is Davydenko. Before the emergence of Del Potro and Murray Davydenko was a solid performer in the top five. Whilst he rarely manages to beat the likes of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal he maintains his rankings by winning circuit events and proving very hard to beat for players outside of the top few ranking spots. Soderling has benefited from being coached by Magnus Norman, but lacks the quality to regularly beat the top players. Davydenko is the best bet here at a reasonable heads up price of 1.85, but do not go crazy as this match is very close, particularly if Soderling is on form.

Rafa Nadal 1.70 Nikolai Davydenko 2.03

I find it hard to believe that Davydenko can be offered at even money to beat Nadal. Nadal is so far superior to Davydenko that I think 1.70 even offers value. My tip is for Nadal to win and you should consider bwins odds of 3.33 that Davydenko will not win a set in this match. You simply cannot see Nadal losing in this game and I would expect odds of around 1.50 for Nadal in this match so consider 1.70 to hold some value. Even when injured I would expect a Nadal win here, such is my confidence in his Tennis ability.

Rafa Nadal 2.94 Novak Djokovic 1.35

Djokovic played amazingly well against Nadal to win in Paris and Nadal commented afterwards that this was the best he had ever seen Novak play. I think Djokovic will at least get to the final here but is Nadal a value bet here? I think he certainly is. Rarely does a player beat Nadal easily twice in a row in such a short period of time; even Federer has not managed it! I think Nadal will make the necessary adjustments and beat Djokovic, probably in three sets. A lot depends on Nadals fitness as he has certainly been hampered by injuries this season. This should be another very close match.

Roger Federer 1.66 Andy Murray 2.09

Murray has always had the better of Federer on the hard courts, apart from the US Open final in 2008 where his inexperience at the grand slam final level let him down. With many circuit event wins to give him confidence, I think you can expect Murray to give Federer a really good game here. Betting on either player offers reasonable odds I think and Federer is certainly the favourite. Murray has beaten him before and both took long breaks after the US Open making the result hard to predict as we are unsure of their form. Perhaps a small wager on Murray to heap the misery on Federer who lost to Benneteau last week in his most surprise defeat for quite some time.

Murray is 1.22 to beat Verdasco at 3.82 in his other match. Verdasco managed to beat Murray at the Australian Open but when Murray is playing well he seems to win his sets 6-2 and 6-3 against the Spanish player. If you think Murray is vulnerable after injury the 3.82 could be a good bet. Watch out for Djokovic to cement his place near the top of the game in this tournament, you heard it here first! Enjoy your tennis betting this weekend and remember to check out the bwin live betting opportunities.

By Malcolm Clarke