Beating The Book: Dan Weston, Tennis Betting Masterclass

game at V City's very familiar. I haven't had him on the podcast before, but I often say, uh, this is probably the guy with the best record over the longest period of time in any sport on my shows.

It's about as simple as that. And what better time to use to go through a masterclass series betting tennis one oh one really not just the one on one, the masterclass series Dan Weston his general approach to handicapping tennis, where you can get the data for it, and what are some of the myths that he wanted to bust or that I at least wanted him to address one Betting the Sport of Tennis, Dan Weston on today's Tennis

Master Class series on the Beating the Book podcast. Enjoy It's a numbers game with your host Jil Alexander on those us to believe in analytics. It is the numbers game right here at Vista, the Vegas s tastt Information Network, the sports Betting Network, Serious x and Channel two oh four, Visa dot Com, the Visa A foobost link a Game Plus. It is Gil Alexander live from Bay Live from San Francisco. This is where sports betting, analytics, actionable sports betting information

lives on the show today. We don't get the opportunity during the hamster wheel that we're on during the normal sports cycle to stop, reset at and get into handicapping basics, especially on sports that we've made hay On specifically here on a numbers game like the sport of tennis UH. And so we want to do that for a little while today because I think this is what there's a subset who was like, I really like to get into the weeds of tennis. So we'll do this here at

the top of the show. And for that, of course, we bring in our longest tenured UH tennis expert here on the show and really the guy that we go to for all the nuts and bolts. If you could only bet one sporting event across the gamute and had only one shot at one event, who would be the guy you'd go to and what sport would it be? Here's my answer. Everybody's Dan Weston from the UK there in England right now, Dan, good afternoon to you. How you doing, man, Yeah, I'm good, very condoms, thank you.

How how first of all, before we get into the nuts and bolts here, how has give us a snapshot of how folks in England have dealt with the pandemic? Is it's similar from your understanding of how we have

sort of chappy? How has it gone over there? Yeah, it's a bit of a strange time really because you've got the lockdown has happened, as it has with most most countries really, but the government used it off about a week and a half of that little bit so you can you can see one person who's not in your family at any one time as long as it's outside and social distancing of two meters away, so there's there's a little bit of more scopes sort of do

stuff you know, and shops are starting to open again, like a few few know that sort of burger change, like McDonald's, KFC, stuff like that are all starting to open again. So it's a little bit of going back to some fort normality. But it's so really strange time. And obviously no sport as well, which is which is

strange for everybody, strange for everybody. I'm gonna start telling people here when if they get within two ms of me, because we use six feet obviously here did I'm gonna start telling two meters, buddy, and see if they even have any idea what I'm talking about. Said you're doing. You write for Pinnacle, you write for bet Fair, you did for bet Fair here um Dancy Dance getting calls during the show. It's the very popular man Dan you

for for bet Fair. You've written this Masterclass Tennis betting series, and master Class has become very popular on Facebook in all different arenas, whether it's writing with Malcolm Gladwell, poker, I think, Daniel and Grano, there's all kinds of things that people are doing. Master classes. You do one for tennis and you linked to it by the way on your Twitter. Everybody should know at tennis ratings. So after this discussion, if they want to go deeper, uh, they

can find the links there. But it's in three parts, and I want to do the first two parts here before the break, and then the third part after the first of which is really the nuts and bolts of what you do. It has to do with service, hold and break opponent percentages or service and return points one percentages. This is the crux of what you do because as you put it, it really does give sort of a fair Bay East line of the skill level of players.

Now that's exactly it. So there's there's a really strong relationship between the combined hold break percentages of a player and their win percentage, and likewise with the service and return points one percentage for each players the same thing. That's both of them really drive win percentages of players.

And if you if you look at the charts that I put in their first article, you can see that the top three players by the combined service and return points one percentage, feder At, Djokovic, and Nadal all had the three highest win percentages as well. So there's the

elite three are just still still out there. Is the best as the best players on tour, and yeah, it's it's really useful to start compare and contrast those those players and and and what I do as well as I use those those numbers surface related hugely, probably twelve months sample size, I would try to try to do on the whole. And I would then use those service return points one percentages and whole break percentages for two players on the surface to generate kind of model price

and just as sort of a guideline. And you and I have referred to this on the show before, in our in our many times together, when you combine service and return points, you just add them together. One fifteen is elite, you drop down a few percentage points from there you're talking just below the elite level. And then one hundred is what top fifty is that kind of the very top fifty in the ranking. Yeah, the average

player on tour kind of thing. If you're a hundred, then then about forty five fifty I find to be to be about the mark for those type of players. And yeah, they're on the whole. Players inside the top fifty will have over a hundred percent mark. You know, they're winning more points than they're they're losing. But obviously

that's a bit of a sliding scale. Um. But then obviously players outside the top five in terms of ranking unless they have long term injury players, you know, the guys like Andy Murray, dal Pot etcetera, that they're going to have on the whole below for those metrics as well. So UM, and it's important obviously, is well kind of putting go on and talk about to look at that opponent quality and stuff as well. So that's that's that's also that's sort of something to discuss as well. Yeah,

just just to give people some tangible examples. You already mentioned Djokovic, Nadalin, Feder at least pre pandemic. We don't know any different after the pandemic. But it is amazing how those three guys are just completely off the charts outlier you were in terms of their just elite status,

but in terms of that top fifty mark. I think one of the things that I found fascinating was, and this makes sense intuitively, when we watch the sport of tennis, there aren't many examples, you say, of being below a hundred percent combined in these categories and being consistently ranked inside the ranked inside the top fifty, UM. But there are there are some guys that sort of buck that, and they tend to be the guys we think of as very in Lehman's violence heavy cases, if you will.

Who are those guys? Yeah, well, I think we were kind of enigmatic. It would be a diplomatic word, maybe, teach. But benoir Pere was someone we've spoken about quite a few times ourselves, haven't we on this on the show. And he's this guy who's got a really high ability ceiling. I remember watching him play del Potro in Rome maybe like I want to say, but it might have been a year either side of that, and he wiped the

fullward del Potro that day. That was That was a real tough one for me to take because I was I was favoring del Potro that day, and yeah, he's got such a high ceiling, but he can just throw in really bad performances as well. And and guys like Fabio Fannini and Nick Kirios are also also you know,

fit the bill in that respect as well. I would say, Yeah, I find the outliers fascinating in general, because you were talking about guys they're tend to win matches more than those underlying analytics would suggest, and guys who tend to lose more than their underlying analytics suggests give examples of those categories. Yes, so for sure. I mean someone like Stefano sits it passes, is someone who's a real outlier in terms of how much they win compared to their

underlying data. So so there, his underlying data isn't fantastic. His decent, don't get me wrong, but it's not not Stelen certainly not like top five level, which is kind of on the class of right now in terms of a ranking position um and and his return data is what tends to hold him back. And I think that that the unless he can address that, then it's going to be probably quite a big problem in terms of you know, looking at Grand Slams in the future on

the whole. But the vast, last, last majority of the last ten fifteen years for men's Grand Slam winners have all had above average percentages and considerably about average percentages of breaking up oponents. And and that's pretty quite logical as well, because you've you don't if you play best of five steps, you don't want to play a long

long point. You don't want to play long matches, long set sold matches that cumulating fatigue is just something to you've really got to try and avoid as a player. And the server orientated players like Sits the past and going down the rankings a little bit, someone like Curios

as well. John is no sport likewise that really holds them back in these big tournaments because the one they're relying on variants a lot with the big serves and tie breaks and stuff like that, key points winning key points, but they're also going to get more tired because they're

playing longer matches on the whole one. And if you look at like the winners of Grand Slams compared to those guys who are about out in the courses and any finals by that stage, a lot of the time the winners have played like two three hours less court time by the quarterfinals, and it's it's it makes a massive,

massive difference. On on the flip side, that's someone like Mills around it should great or dematrop who have got got higher high reputations in the past have underwhelmed from a win percentage, but their underland dates is actually a little bit better than what you might expect from from their win percentage. So then perhaps guys to look at

next season in terms of favorable conditions as well. Both both not quite a fast course petulity demetrol and loves the fast core finding finding some value on those guys probably underrated a little bit by the market right now. Talking to Dan Weston at Tennis Ratings is where you can find him on Twitter, Tennis Ratings, dot CEO dot UK his website. We won't give away every name and every piece of your piece because we want people to

actually read through them. But in part two and you alluded it to it, you alluded to it earlier, Dan, opposition quality is such a key component of this, and while that may sound obvious to some, you really dive into that deeply. Yeah, Yeah, for sure. I mean, I mean the fact that I mean, even my eyes I

will open studying this. To be honest with you, the fact that the top top ten player has played like three times as many matches against opten opposition as as guys who rank forty fifty is just mind blowing, to be honest with you, and it really shows how tough the top guys have it in terms of having to play a high quality opposition on a regular basis. Yeah, and and the example of Novak Djokovic is such an interesting one for people who ever had any doubts about

his dominance and just the nature of his dominance. You make the point that once you get out of top ten opponents, for Novak Djokovic, the dominance level is off the charts, like it is breathtaking. Yeah, exactly that. So he's boasting like isner service numbers for when he's not playing top ten opposition, and obviously but he doesn't have that reputation of being such a big server. But then he's also like breaking like thirty five percent of the

time as well. So when you're when you're holding and breaking thirty against an opponent ranking bracket that's so tough to be in, is it's not surprising he's prohibitively short priced by the market in most of those instances as well. So here's the money question, then, Dan, Because it occurs to me that people are listening to this and those that are because those that have listened to this show a numbers game on Visa. This is the sport that we this in baseball are the two sports that we

kill the most. And what we've just described about tennis really just trying to ascertain what, you know, the difference between true skill set and what the stats are, what performance shows, right, And it's very similar to pitching in baseball. But the money question for those listening and who are interested, are okay, baseball, I know where to get all those numbers. I go to these specific websites like fan graphs that

the volume of information is just boundless. Where do they go for service hold and break opponent percentages or service and return points one percentages? In tennis? Where does one get that data? Yeah, that's a very good question. I think there's a number of good resources online for that. So the ATP website is actually not too bad for it, and it goes back quite historically as well in terms of the year's current so you can live and look at like you know, previous years and stuff like that.

Um also you can buy all means you can anyone can build their own database of data from the match stats as well. That I mean, there's so many websites which have matched stats for for the individual matches. So for example, websites like flash scores, so for scores, there's there's plenty of others who are sort of will run off the same engine. They look like they run off the same engine. Um do the match stats that you can then put into your own database and create your

own database of every single player. Alternatively, there's some subscription sites that also cover that type of information as well. So there's there's websites such as on Court and Tennis Insight as well. They charge the subscription, but they have a lot of information as well. So so a few a few sites for people to have a look at. Yeah, and then every once in a blue moon, we should say when you're feeling generous, you come on this show and you're like, hey, I'll give this to you black.

We usually do it for Slams right where you're like, oh, I'll give you this up, so you'll you may. I don't want to put you on the spot, but maybe once or twice in the future you'll do that as well. I guess I'm so we will. Yeah. Well, it was capped up in Slams and sometimes Masters tournaments as well. Yeah. Yeah, Well, let's hope. Let's hope tennis is sooner than later, Dan, because you know, as we remember here in this country, the night that the NBA shut down and the mornings

when college basketball tournaments UH conference tournaments shut down. But really it was tennis that was the first UH sport to have a cancelation. And it was tennis is de facto fifth major at Indian Wells the Sunday before the NBA shut down where they were, and remember they were ridiculed when they did it. But Riverside County, you know, which is a very old population, UH predominantly older population.

They really made a great move there. And tennis has been the first sport to really be vigilant about this and and UH and shut down sport. But we, like every other sport, hope it comes back um sooner than later, that's for sure. After the Breakdan, let's get into the three biggest myths of tennis handicapping. We'll do that coming back on a numbers game with Dan Weston right here at Visa these Sports betting them. Welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander. Numbers game brought you by

man escaped dot com. Manscape dot com has the tools for your family jewels. You can get off let's free shipping with the code visa in at manscape dot com. That's at manscaped dot Com with promo code v S I n Gil Alexander in San Francisco, Dan Weston in England joining us by video Skype, Dan Great question off Twitter. Uh, this is the thing I always bring up when it comes to tennis data, Jamie Samuel Great Minds or a great question? Does Dan fine? Spreads can be quote unquote

wonky in tennis because players win differently. Some get up a break and they are happy to just maintain that break, maybe to conserve energy. Fed on grass comes to mind. He says, others tend to put their foot down and don no matter the score. I would sort of add to that. There is this notion of people people always the brains always goes to fit, they go to fixing matches. I'm not talking about fixing matches. What about the dirty data also of guys who they're down a break in

a set. Let's say they're up two to one, and let's say a five setter, they're down a break in a fourth set, and they just kind of decide, yeah, I'm just gonna let this set go and play the fifth set. So there is that notion of of dirty data in tennis. Is that a problem for you? Yeah? I know what you're saying here. I'm I think that

it's quite a rare circumstance. That's say, a player will tanker set when they're a set down just to break downstars saying a set when they're leading, so te one up in in the fourth set in a Glands slamming the breakdown. I don't think. I don't see that as being a major major issue. Um. It probably does happen sometimes, but I think the effect on overall data is like

a very very negligible. Obviously, in the best of three set of matches, it's even less likely that someone's going to want to tank a set just just you know, I think that's you could you can say that there's as much likelihood of that happening from the kind of fatigue mentality kind of perspective as as a player just kind of like imploding anyway and mentally and you know, just just completely like losing the pullot mentally because they's stressed or whatever. And I don't see it's a major

issue um at all, really, to be honest. And and as far as what Jamie was saying, where certain players might have different behaviors, I guess it all falls under the same category where you're saying is you're you're just going to look at the raw data. The more you overthink it, the more you're polluting it. Basically, you don't want to get into that game. Yeah, I mean with with with the kind of the raw data and looking at player ability to come back or or retain retain leads,

will come back from deficits stuff. That's that's very very important. I have a database with that as well, which I think is quite useful, particularly if you're maybe taking taking

prices in running as well, if you can do that. Um, but there is a kind of a trend really, so what yours find is that the serve orientated players they win sets by much more narrow margins, but there are also a lot better at retaining leads because they've got that powerful serves to back them up when when times get tough, then a breakpoint down or fifteen fifteen forty down, a lot of the time they can serve their way

out of that whole. And whereas whereas a more return arounentated player and perhaps a typical clay quarter doesn't have the serve to to bail them out when when when necessary, And so generally you find that there's this trend where the lower the hold percentage or the small smaller the gap between whole percentage and break percentage, the more likely a player is to to lose leads and to have more more of a a match which is quite topsy turvy with a lot of breaks, or perhaps some some

dominant sets as well, like a double break leader for set like say six to as opposed to the server orientated guys, you know that is a curiosity and federer who with a lot of sets sort of six four seven, five seven six type things. All right, Dan, we got ninety seconds, So I'm going to shout out the three big myths in tennis handicapping, and you give me a few words on them. One the fallacy of head to

head records. Yeah, so head to head records. This is the sample size is just not big enough to to to warrant much investigation into this um what what what I would say is that it's got to really have a lot of context with it. So recently, the recent data two to three years at least the three Neil

lead would be would be recommended. Also, the surface did they play on the surface, which was favoring one particular player, and also like looking at the career trajectories of of the different players as well, because sometimes you see like a guy like three down in head to head, but all them three defeats were like when he was like a young player and now he's a lot better. So how can you really give any credence to that head to head? He can't really um and and understanding the

context of the matchup as well. So I talked about my my my friend who was top ten player at one point, he had eight nill head to head the deficit against one player, but he he lost like tire breaks and blue match points and blue serving for the match and stuff like that. So he said to me he's never he would never felt beat before he went on the went on court, you know against that guy, even though it's like miles down in the head to head.

Tell you what, we'll come back after the break. You don't mind, do you mind stoking around one, because we'll get we'll get to the other two myths addition to to the fails you have head to head matches, because there's two others that I think are key, the second of which is really fascinating Dan Weston talking tennis since we've got the chance during these strange times, was taken to get to the nuts and balls of tennis. Handycamping

on the way. Christopher Leek has still become Bill Crackerburger as well on the Numbers Game and Visa Vista spending them Welcome back to a numbers game with Jill Alexander.

It is a numbers game right here at Visit Serious XM Channel two of four, Gil Alexander, Dan Weston at Tennis Ratings by the way again where you can find him on Twitter if you want to dive deeper into this for all the UH tennis heads who want to handicap tennis and win, I mean, I guess if you if you don't like money, you may not want to do it. But you know, if you like money, might

be something you might want to dive into. Just just a suggestion, but here are the three biggest myths we just talked about the fallacy of of when they throw up head to head stats, it's generally meaningless. As Dan said, there might be a rare circumstance um that fits all these criteria enough of a sample size, the proper surface, on and on but generally speaking it's all uh nonsense,

quite frankly. Number two, Um, this one's interesting because you'll see this every once in a while, the notion of a home advantage in a tennis match lay in it. Yes, so obviously in a lot of sports, and I don't know what it's like an American sports so much, but in soccer in England, the concept of home advantages is massive and team teams routine you have a considerably high wind percentage at home than they do when they're when they're away. Um. And I think some people think that

this kind of applies with with tennis as well. You know, for a players playing in front of a passion at home crowd in a big, big tournament, maybe they might get an extra five ten percent out of it. That's I guess some people's theory. But mathematically, if you're looking at like closing prices, that that that wasn't really a

major factor at all. And I think that a lot of the time when you're comparing those comclosing prices to to the actual winds that the players as a group recorded, the more of a more of a case is the fact that they're actually getting conditions to their liking at

home a lot more so. For example, you look at English players, for example, a lot of them played a lot of grass when they're younger, so they're better and go out us than they are than they are on other surfaces, perhaps particularly clay notably, and therefore therefore they might have performed better on cross but that's that's expected because there they're at home at wimbled and Queens tournaments

and on glass in England. But then also the fact that sa If as a Spanish or an Argentinean player, a lot of the time their clay court specialists, real return orientated players. They're not necessarily performing better because they're in their home country. They're just they're just performing better because the conditions of their home country's tournaments tend to be sort of very slow clay courts, for example, in those instances, and there's quite there's quite a few few

other examples. So for example, looking at flip side of hardcourt, going back in time a little bit, Bernard Tomics, who those careers imploded a little bit at the moment he had a superb record and fast hard courts in Australia and in curiosity as well as similar cyber player as well,

but that's completely expected the serve orientated players. So it's kind of looking at horses and courses rather than actual specific countries, looking at the conditions, looking at which tournaments of a slow slower conditions than than faster conditions, et cetera. Courses for courses. I hope that one is pretty straightforward

with people for people. This is the third and final one, and I find this one the most interesting because I remember distinctly Dan, you and I during Wimbledon last year, during the last Australian Open, having this circumstance come up, and it's the notion of incredible overreactions within tournaments um explain how two different markets can be doing to two

different things at the same time. It was funny enough as I thought of our conversations about Sophia Kennan before and then it started in Australia in January, and how it was completely absurd that that she was actually a bigger place to win the tournament uh compare paired to cored Golf, despite the fact that she was a favorite for their individual match. I think it was in the fourth round of that particular tournament. And there's there's a few instances of that. So golf again in Winwood and

last season was quite similar. And Lucas Russell, notably in Winwood and twelve after he beat Ralph Nadal end up being fifth favorite on Betfair outright for the tournament, but he was a heavy underdog in the next round against

Philip Cobbles Driver. So how does that work exactly? I mean, there's some massive flaws in those outright markets from that perspective, and and generally speaking, there was a slight under performance from heavy underdog winners in against notable players, players who have priced over five point zero zero in decimal, decimal terms, how they performed in their next match backing up a big win, if you like, and they slightly underperformed um based on closing price value and so so kind of

my mentality is that in England they might call it there's something that after the Lord Mayors Show where a player kind of disappoints after after a big win, Whereas I think a lot of people kind of try and ride the players perceived form when actually it's not really form, and a lot of it's kind of variant or the big name player under performing as well. So there's a lot of other factors that go into it rather than one player being on like a complete role. What was

the term you used after a disappointing match? What was the term you just used? Disappointee match? After a big win, we would be called after the Lord Mayors Show, after the Lord Mayor's Show up. I'll ask you affair exactly the origins of that, um, But I think and I don't mean to offend it all, but whenever you're on, we always joke that there's a bit of an English

to English translation here for the predominantly American audience. But essentially, if you missed that, what Dan is getting at is uh the example of Wimbledon when Coco Golf beat Venus Williams I believe it was, or when she had an upset, I think even a starker upset in Australia. I think

she she'd beat the number three seat if I'm not mistaken. Um, but you'll see, yeah, you'll see the futures market where Cocoa Goff's number will just create and it will be just she'll be like the third or fourth shot to win the tournament all of a sudden. But in her next match she's much more appropriately priced. And what Dan is getting at is that match price is more often than not the much more accurate one. Is that well said, Yeah very much so so I much more favored Kennan

than Golf in that Australian match in January. Yeah. Yeah, obviously that the outright market was was was not favorable and at all. Yeah, Dan, I can't thank you enough. We we don't get a chance to do this when we're handicapping matches, um, but this was a great time to do it. And again for those who want to delve into it, because we just really scratched the surface.

At Tennis Ratings is where Dan has posted his three Masterclass Tennis Betting Series pieces over their bedfair and the last thing in thirty seconds, Dan, when do you think we're coming back? What's your best guess? Yeah, I mean I'd like to think we're going to get some decent action this year. I mean I think maybe like August might be a yeah, an optimistic I'll take that to Yeah, absolutely,

we'll come back. Thank you, Dan, I really appreciate it, man, and really, uh, stay safe and we hope to talk to you soon. Yeah. Likewise, ty tego Dan Weston the Great Dan Western doesn't get better than that in any specific sports on planet Earth.