Betting on ITF Tennis Tournaments
The ITF (International Tennis Federation) was established in 1913 to provide a governing body for world tennis. Whilst there are professional bodies for both men's (ATP) and women's (WTA), the ITF was instated to ensure the running, ranking and providing of tournaments for players at lower professional and amateur ranks.
The ITF's role includes looking after male, female, junior, veteran and wheelchair tennis for all age groups on a global scale. The amalgamation of 210 national tennis governing bodies makes up the ITF which has been based in and around London for the majority of its existence. The most prestigious team events Davis Cup and Fed Cup are also organised by the ITF.
Betting on ITF tennis events is not something that many websites offer. There are a lot of ITF level events, and it is hard to come up with accurate odds when rather little data is available for the players. For the widest coverage of both male and female ITF tennis tournaments, we strongly recommend Bet365 (read our review here). Here, you can actually watch live streams of tennis matches. To use the Live Streaming service you will need to be logged in and have a funded account or to have placed a bet in the last 24 hours. Any fixture/event on the Bet365 website which has the Play or Video icon next to it is scheduled to be shown via Live Streaming.
Not everybody can keep track of what goes on between the players that are ranked below ATP/WTA #300, but below we give you a few tips on how to pick winners for ITF tournaments. Those tips can actually make your ITF tennis tournament betting profitable.
ITF Tournaments
The ITF runs a development professional tour for both the men's and women's game. These tournaments consist of the Futures tournaments which are mid to low level competitions. The concept is to try and feed players into the higher ranked professional games through these lower, yet competitive tournaments.
Obviously not anyone can simply go and play in Wimbledon. Unless you already have a certain ranking, you will not even be accepted to play the qualifiers for the big tournaments. In order to get such a ranking, you would have to participate in low level tournaments and win points for the ATP/WTA World Ranking and progress to the point where your World ranking allows you to sign in for bigger tournaments.
For men, a Future would have $15,000 prize money, and a tournament event in one location would mostly have three consecutive tournaments of 15k. This regulation is meant to reduce travelling expenses for the players. For women, Futures can have from $15,000 up to $100,000 of prize money.
How to successfully bet on ITF tennis events
In order to understand the dynamics of ITF tennis events and for successful ITF betting, you have to be aware that most of those players are young and have rather little experience on international level. They are also short on funds – actually you can say that for most players under a ranking of #200, the expenses to "be on tour" would be equal or higher than the occasional share of the prize money.
The decisive factors that you have to look out for in order to pick a winning player at ITF level are the following:
- Has the player been playing a string of tournaments for at least the past 4-6 weeks, or did he just sign up for one tournament? In order to get good results, you have to play lots of tournaments regularly – this is, asides from training sessions, the only way to improve your game and accumulate the experience needed to play on a higher level.
- Is this player from the country where the tournament is being held? This can be a huge advantage. Not only will he have more support from the spectators, but he will also be less stressed by travelling and problems with accommodation. He is also more likely to have the assistance of a coach provided by his national federation, or his home club.
- Of course you can get information about each player. Take a look at the website www.itftennis.com. They run a player database that shows you permanently updated info about the results the player had, and even more important, how much a player has played in the past. Consider anyone who has won more than 50% of his matches on ITF level as a player on his way up!
Best ITF Betting Sites
Bet365 – Non US
The coverage of the four majors of tennis is something to behold on a site as comprehensive as Bet365. Literally every match is covered from the men's all the way down to the juniors and not only that, but these matches also have 100+ markets. Bet365 also has a far wider coverage of ITF level tennis tournaments. As long as you are logged in to your account, have at least some funds in it or have placed a bet on a match within 24 hours previous to it, the match can be watched via their live streaming service and with every game in the majors the markets will turn live for a wealth of in-play betting activity. Click here to sign up with Bet365.
Intertops - US Friendly
Intertops is the best tennis betting alternative to Bet365 for US based customers. It provides a wealth of markets from the four majors and a host of other tennis betting opportunities throughout the year. In terms of ITF tennis betting, they are not as good as Bet365, but US sports bettors won't find a better option, unfortunately. The simplicity of the site has made it what it is today and its functionality is second to none in the industry.
When you open a new account at Intertops (click here to visit their website) you can take advantage of a $200 bonus.