Tennis is currently Unibet’s second most popular sport to place bets (behind football). While players are vying for dominance in the ’new era’ of tennis, what hasn’t changed is Unibet’s innovation in tennis betting. From being one of the first operators to introduce live streaming on Unibet TV to being the first to pioneer ’next point’ and ’current point’ betting under the ’Action Betting’ umbrella back in 2016. Unibet continues to revolutionise its tennis offering with ‘Ace in The Game’ in-play offering, which allows players to place bets on whether there will be an ace in the game, turning a mundane game into a thrilling encounter. In short, every ace counts. In addition to this, Unibet has also introduced ‘breaking point in the game’, in-play offering. Both offers are proving to be popular for our customers, and we are seeing sizeable growth in the number of bets on these offerings by 33% and 83%, respectively, over the 2022 US Open."
What To Expect from the 2023 Season
The first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open, is done and dusted, with Djokovic capturing his 10th Australian Open title. With this win, he is level with Nadal on 22 Grand Slam titles, and he is currently installed as the favourite for the Roland Garros (French Open), taking place from May – June 2023, with odds currently at 2.90 at the time of writing this article
The Roland Garros favourite would usually be Nadal. However, the start of the season hasn’t been easy, with his Australian Open defence ending prematurely in the 2nd round to Mackenzie McDonald and suffering another injury in the process, this time with his hip. Nadal had returned from various injuries numerous times before. Surely his focus will now be the clay season and title #15 at Roland Garros, though he is currently the third favourite in our odds and price for players of odds at 4.50 at the time of writing this article.
The ’Netflix Curse’
The Australian Open 2023 showed us that the new generation still lacks the consistency and temperament to dominate the tour like the ‘Big 3’of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Casper Ruud and Taylor Fritz suffered shock losses to lower-ranked opponents at long odds. ‘Short odds’ refer to outcomes that are likely to happen, and ‘Long odds’ refer to outcomes that are more unlikely to happen. Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev have yet to win a Grand Slam despite floating around the edges for several years (with Tsitsipas again falling to Djokovic in the Australian Open final). Daniil Medvedev has shown he’s got the willbut once again lacked the consistency required in his loss against Sebastian Korda. Then we have Felix Auger-Aliassime, who laboured through the earlier rounds before getting knocked out in the fourth round. I suppose Fritz and Auger-Aliassime could blame the ’Netflix Curse’, which refers to the latest Netflix sports documentary, ‘Breaking Point’ which was released and streamed during the Australian Open, but is the young generation focusing too much on commercial opportunities, Instagram and Tik Tok and lacking the required dedication to dominate the game? Carlos Alcaraz is touted by many as the real deal, and he’s shown that with the title at last year’s US Open, though he still needs to keep his feet grounded to dominate the game truly. ’Carlitos’ pulled out of the Australian Open due to an injury but is currently the second favourite to win Roland Garros at odds of 3.20, behind Djokovic.
Whirlwind Womens Tennis Association
Unpredictability in the Women's Tennis Association is nothing new, though the emergence of the female tennis player Iga Świątek, especially after her performance last season, was supposed to signal a new world order. However, with her defeat in the fourth round, the Australian open began with no clear favourites. Second seed Ons Jabeur’s ’Great Expectations’ turned into great disappointment with a second-round exit, with sixth seed Maria Sakkari following suit with a third-round exit. In the end, it was Aryna Sabalenka to finally captured her maiden Grand Slam – yet another first-time winner. Świątek is still the overwhelming favourite for Roland Garros at odds 1.80, with no other players shorter than 10.00, and Sabalenka being the second favourite at 11.00.
