WTA Mallorca and Birmingham

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I'm going to have another crack at grass and try and build on what I learned from Herts and Notts.

They will be finished after tonight so will bring the total forward tomorrow.

Birmingham is in 2nd day of qualifying, I'm just running straight off the numbers and rejecting anything that doesn't pass a basic eye test.

Jakupovic vs Vickery

Adding Vickery ML 1.724

Pera vs Bondarenko

Adding Pera ML 1.68

Mallorca


Kudermetova vs Bonaventure

Fading Kuder as appeared injured in last match but like Bonaventure regardless.

Adding Bonaventure +128


BOL
 

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Cumulative record brought forward from Herts and Notts

40-26

+811 +8.4%

No stream for these matches so can only go off the numbers.

I use decimal odds for easy conversion to implied probabilities and forgot to convert to US odds before posting.

Pera got the win 2-0 US odds were -147

Vickery lost 0-2 US odds -138

And Bonaventure won comfortably at +128

Bonaventure line went from +112 to +162 at close so I'm guessing bettors missed the injury Kuder aggravated in her previous match. Kuder was bagelled in the 2nd set by Bonaventure.

One example where BTCL on the favorite was -EV.

A couple of quick comments on BTCL as it seems to be both somewhat popular and somewhat controversial and gets bogged down in theoretical discussions around market efficiency.

A couple of years ago pinny published data on their players which showed a high correlation [r>.95] between BTCL and player profitability. Pinny claimed it also was a good predictor of future profitability for players. This essentially means that BTCL explains 95% of the variance between winning and losing players which sounds quite compelling. This seemed to effectively end the debate around the value of BTCL.

My take

The better line you get and the more winners you pick the greater chances you have of being a winning player.

Players that BTCL will outperform the players that don't BTCL for the same group of events.

After my bet is placed I have no control over the line movement, I just have to hope that it is +EV regardless.

Anyway record now:

42-27

+873 +8.8%
 

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Tonight's matches so far

Just going by the numbers, the lines on these dropped from open so wanted to take them early

May add some more later on.

Mallorca

Adding Kontaveit -1.5 -139

Birmingham


Ka Pliskova ML -180

Brady ML -102

I'd like to take Riske -1.5 but that line is not being offered and I am reluctant to take a game spread or total.
 

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Not a great night. I went to sleep in the 2nd set of the Stosur match and missed all the action.


Pliskova and Kontaveit both lost and they had the largest statistical advantage over their opponents, combined with serve advantage and reasonablish odds.

So my capping was way off for both of these matches.

And I BTCL for both matches.....

At least I got 1 win with Brady.

So record now

43-29

+654 +6.4%

I'll have another go tonight and hopefully things go a bit more to plan.
 

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Tonights matches

I am just running with the numbers and trying to ignore the noise.

Svitolina -1.5 sets

Vekic has back injury, hopefully survives 2 sets.

Goerges -1.5 sets

Sakkari has better record on grass and is at good odds, so was tough to run with Julia, but has big statistical advantage

Cornet ML +152

Cornet has 2-0 H2H and both have been struggling, I'm hoping Alize will be a live dog.

Sasnovich +102

Lottner has continued her good form from Germany, she has become too hot now.

Sevastova -169

Better serve, I have Sevastova winning this comfortably.

Hopefully goes better than last night.

BOL
 

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Lottner continues to torment me..

And Svito was up 3-1 in the 2nd set before losing the next 5 games.

Cornet is still hanging in there and Goerges just closed out the match 2-0.


Adding Tsurenko ML +130

Stats favor Tsurenko, they are 1-4 H2H with their last match on grass going to Watson in a very close match.
 

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Cornet just evened it up at 1 set a piece.

And Svitolina remembered how to play tennis again winning the 3rd set 6-1.

Anyway

Adding Kasatkina ML +101

To complete the double set of losses for the sisters.

If Pliskova serves lights out will be tough for Kasatkina to beat.....
 

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One more

The line on Babos v Buza has gone out making it now value.

Adding Babos ML -112

Buza was far from convincing on grass against weak opponents and not competitive against Osaka.

Babos should be too strong.
 

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Svito, Sasnovich and Babos let me down.

Buza played like normal Buza while Babos played like Buza at Nottingham.

But Goerges, Cornet, Tsurenko, Kasatkina and Sevastova came through so ended up 5-3 for the night.

I had Goerges -1.5 sets at + 130 and Svitolina -1.5 sets at +102

So record now

48-32

+896 +7.5% ROI

Sample size is still low but still cautiously optimistic.
 

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Tonight's matches

Mallorca

Maria v Witthoeft

Witthoeft ain't losing to Maria. Looks like she is running into some form ahead of Wimbledon. She's reasonable on grass

Maria has only won 1 set off Witthoeft in 5 tries since 2015, I'll take Maria's win over Kontaviet as a one off opportunity to get good odds on a mismatch.

Adding Witthoeft ML -117


Garcia had a close match against Su-Wei with Hsieh actually winning more points than Garcia. So pass on Garcia.

Stosur v Arruabarena

Stosur finally manged to play someone who sucks on grass more than her and got a win at good odds.

Now the odds are in favor of her opponent so

Adding Arruabarrena ML +116


Birmingham

Osaka vs Jakupovic

This year Jakupovic has beaten Mertens, Pera, Paolini, Frech and Giorgi on grass.

I estimate that Jakupovic has just over 60% of winning one of the first 2 sets and the odds are +118, so looks realistic and EV positive.

Also Osaka does play like her sister every now and then.

Adding Jakupovic +118

I may have another look at the Buza match but unless the odds for the other matches change dramatically that will be it for tonight.


BOL
 

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Osaka retired!!! Must've been some nice +++ $$$ for those who got Jakupovic ML!!!
 

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Yes but not for me though, pinny requires match to be completed for the set betting to stand.

Pity it looked like it was going to be a pretty decent match.

Witthoeft lost. Maria had a good strategy, standing deep and just putting the ball back in play near the baseline and waiting for an error.

Hopefully Arruabarrena will get the win over Stosur.
 

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Get it all back tomorrow!

Yeah Stosur played pretty good.

So ended up 0-2 after the Jakupovic beet was voided.

Record now 48-32

+643 +5.6%

On grass I've gone 19-19 for -257 and -5.5% so very close from what you would expect from tossing a coin.
 

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8 matches tonight


Adding Hercog +1.5 sets at +117, Riske always seems to have close matches, and Hercog has a big serve advantage, if she can hit some returns she could be a live dog for the match.

Adding Lottner +1.5 sets -118 Getting on board the Lottner train a couple of stops late.

Adding Azarenka ML at -148 More certain than Witthoeft vs Maria.

Adding Mugu -1.5 sets at -118 It would surprise me if Strycova gets more than 6 games. i estimate Barb has around 60% chance of holding her serve vs 80% for Muguruza.

Adding Peterson ML at +117 I have this as a flip with small edge to Peterson at plus odds.

Adding Goerges ML at +187 Barty has had a soft run where she has got a lot of w's on her record, and was lucky to beat Konta at Notts. Goerges has been solid for a while.

Also thinking about Tsurenko vs Kasatkina, I may take Tsurenko if Kina's odds drop.

Passing on Kvitova shes to hot and Gavrilova has little chance.

Hopefully any retirements will be in my favor I'm 0-2 on retirements so far.

BOL
 

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Ended up 3-3

Azarenka, Mugu and Peterson let me down but Hercog and Lottner managed to get a set and Goerges got the upset over Barty.

Hercog won the 1st set, then was down on the ground receiving treatment at 3-4 in the 2nd set. Fortunately the match was completed. But it was a sweat hoping the match would be completed.

I went to sleep in the 3rd set of the Hercog match so didn't see any of the other games.

Tsurenko's odds ended up moving out to +175 which would have been attractive but not until I was long asleep.

So record now 51-37

+560 + 4.6%

[W-L should have been 48-34 after the previous nights 0-2, I had to take Jakupovic out as was voided and misclicked something on my spreadsheet. Didn't affect the dollars or ROI%.]



So, I am reasonably happy with my model, its a little more complex than NFL and NBA and there are far more teams [players] to consider. NBA has 30, NFL has 32 and WTA has around 200.

Also the nature of tennis is challenging to model ie the games are short and can be won with 4 points so with a winning point on serve probability of 0.5 the volatility is going to be high. It's not surprising that the girls matches have so many breaks. Also small things can make a big difference like close line calls, net cords, bad bounces. These happen infrequently so they do not average out over the course of a match.

There are also injuries and motivation to consider and these probably can't be predicted.

I'd be happier if my ROI was closer to 10% than 5% but the sample size is still quite low. Looking at the results I may have been abit unlucky in a couple of matches so my ROI may be in the 5-10% range, which would be OK. When your ROI is low, 1 or 2 games can make a big difference.
 

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Taking some of the earlier lines for tonight's matches.

Jakupovic v Rybari

Looks like close to a flip with Jaku at good odds.

Adding Jaku to +1.5 sets at +115

Tsurenko vs Strycova

The Strycova line moved in as soon as the limits increased. Maybe recency bias after she beat Mugu.

Adding Tsurenko ML +152

Safarova v Maria

Safarova was at -200 earlier and then jumped down to -250 someone must have bet max at low limit while I was watching.

I like Safarova but not sure how to bet it.

Sevastova v Tomlj

I like value on Sevastova but this doesn't pass the eye test.


Stosur v Riske

The numbers say Riske easily over Stosur but Stosur has been on fire and looks motivated. She was spectating Riske's match rather than holidaying, she seems to have made an adjustment to her return game for grass which seems to be working for her. If Stosur has brought her return game up to average level and not just she should be favorite here. In the match I saw she looked pretty solid. So I am going against my number's here.

If Stosur has been able to improve her return game she will be a big threat in the future and it will take the odds makers a couple of matches to catch up.

The safer bet is Stosur +1.5 sets at -127, but I like her to win as well so will split the bet between sets and ML.

Adding Stosur $100 +1.5 sets and $27 ML and count it as 1 bet, ie $100 to win either $0, $52 or $128.

Buza v Svitolina

Svitolina -1.5 sets -110

Goerges v Kvitova

Goerges +1.5 sets -109

Not certain but value, if she can play at average level has. Will be a much tougher match for Kvitova than her match against Gavrilova.


Kenin v Garcia

I see value for Kenin but probably won't bet it.
 

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Not a great night

Tsurenko retired.

Jakupovic lost the plot in the first set after the first 5 games where she was very competitive and had game points in each of the first 5 games including 5 break points but ended up being down 2-3 After that it was a stream of UFE's until late in the 2nd set where she had 2 BP's to level at 5-5 but couldn't convert. Too little too late.

The only bright spot was Stosur.

So record now

52-41

+316 +2.5% ROI

My head is slightly above the water.....


After the unexpected results last night I've been crunching a few numbers.

So far on grass I have gone 23-25 for -$584 -10.2% ROI c/w 26-19 for $901 +13.4% on clay.

I would need a sample size of around of 230 matches on each surface to be 85% confident that these were actually different using parametric stats.

As the sample sizes we usually work with in sports betting are low I've tried the analysis using non-parametric stats, which are not as powerful but can be useful for smaller samples sizes. These indicate that I can be a little confident that these results are not due to chance even with the small sample sizes.

I've looked at the Kvitova, Stosur, Svitolina, Garcia and Maria matches to see if I can learn anything from the numbers. And hopefully be able to improve my grass results before I go broke. It looks like grass is a more volatile surface and difficult for players to maintain consistent levels of performance.

My take on the matches just from looking at the numbers, doesn't give the whole story.

Stosur and Maria seem to have made significant improvement's/adjustments to their game at least on grass.

Maria has played statistically better in her last 2 matches by around the same amount each time, the odds makers have adjusted their model to take this into account when setting their new lines. Similar with Stosur.

I don't think they adjusted enough and the bettors seem to think they have over adjusted. Stosur and Maria should both be live dogs for tonight's semi-finals at value odds.

Kvitova and Kenin both had slightly better performances combined with slightly poorer performances than their opponents.

Kvitova served a bit better and Goerges served a bit worse than normal, as both rely heavily on their service games this ended up having a big effect on the outcome.

Similar with Garcia, Garcia struggled a little with her serve and Kenin's serve was going pretty good, end of story.

So a small drop off in performance from one player and a small increase in performance from the other can have a big impact on the outcome of the match.

The Buza match is difficult to explain, the gap between expected and actual performance was huge. I didn't see the match but I would guess that Svito had some sort of injury or was unwell in some way. The result was what you would expect when Halep plays a 200 ranked player.

When Svito got beaten by Halep she got 47% of the points, but only managed to get 41% against Buza........

I'll post my picks a bit later on.
 

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Tonight's semi-finals

Stosur v Sevastova

Stosur has played pretty well on grass at Mallorca, and hasnt dropped a set. This will be tougher for her than Riske.

Adding Stosur +276

Kenin vs Maria

Maria will be just trying to keep the ball in play and waiting for Kenin to make an error. She's beaten better players than Kenin with this strategy and should be able to win this one.

Adding Maria ML +136

I lime Rybarikova but Strycova holds 4-0 H2H so will pass, and I like Kvitova over Buza but odds are too low.

So hopefully will see a Stosur v Maria match in the final at Mallorca tomorrow night.

BOL
 

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1-1

Maria won, both girls got a bit tight towards the end of the match and could have gone either way.

The last 4 games were all service breaks, but good effort from Maria to hang in there and a timely talk to her coach seemed to settle her down, Kenin got a bandage on her leg near the end but not sure if she was injured or just resting.

Stosur game on the other hand.....

Stosur lost the first set 6-7, after making around 29 UFE's. Her coach game down to have a chat between sets and Stosur told him that the pace of Sevastova's forehands was putting her timing out, I expected him to say something like "hit it to her backhand side or take half a step back" but he told Stosur "I don't care if you win the match or not ..... blah, blah" and Stosur responded by winning a total of 13 points in set 2.

I thought it was an unusual choice of words and Stosur followed up by not seeming to care if she won or lost either. May be coincidence but after I heard the coach I had no doubt that Sevastova was going to win easily.

One more match for each it's likely that Sevastova will overpower Maria and similar with Kvitova over Rybarikova so -1.5 may be the way to go.

Will update later.

Record now

53-42

+416 +3.3%
 

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