What's the chances of........

1.01 bets do get turned over every now and again. You only need to catch one and you're stuffed. I've seen a good number of 1.01 tennis matches get turned on their head. You only need a player to fail to serve out for the match, and their confidence can collapse. If the other player's up for it, that 1.01 can become sticky very quickly.    I suspect it happens less often in football, but you still get a few late comebacks from a couple of goals down - you only need to be on the rough end of an Everton 3-Manchester United 3 scoreline once and your bank will be in serious danger.

You've also got the problem that if the match is looking really really safe, there's often nobody willing to lay your 1.01. As long as it's 1.01, there's generally a chance for the other side, even if it is an incredibly miniscule one.

Yeah, tennis is very good for trading. You can't indiscriminately lay anyone who wins the first set. But if you watch lots of matches then you can train yourself to see when the momentum is shifting.

Each game is a mini progress report, and you'll often see a shift when the player behind starts holding their own serve more easily while returning more shots on their opponent's serve. Alternatively, if the player behind is the one trying to make the winning shots but they're making lots of unforced errors, watch for signs that they're cutting out the UEs - if they do, they may well take charge.

These things aren't infallible, obviously, but you can often detect the signs that they're turning the tide. And the odds tend not to change much until they get close to breaking the other player, so you'll often get chances to lay at very short prices even though you have a good idea the favourite is beginning to wilt.

It only takes one game to completely switch the momentum in a tennis match. Learn to sense the shifts and lay at short prices in expectation of a break (try not to wait until the break actually happens, although if you've been sensing a shift and then the favourite goes 0-15 or 0-30 on their service game, there may still be some good value available), and you don't have to be right very often in order to make good money.  In my opinion, this is a much more effective approach than backing 1.01 shots...

If possible, it's best to watch the matches in live video (Livescorehunter is a decent site for live tennis matches if Betfair aren't covering the match.), as points alone don't tell you the full story. Ideally you want to be knowing if somebody is having trouble handling the power of the other player. Is one player going to dominate if they get into their stride?

TennisInsight is good for checking the past form on players - although I wouldn't place great importance on the picks of the posters. Remember that different tournaments are taken more seriously by some players than by others.  The top seeds are often opposable in tournaments just before a Grandslam. Go through the top 10 or 20 players and see what types of tournaments they have the most success in. You might be surprised at the results!

The protennislive site gives you decent score information. It also offers invaluable statistics on how many points each player has scored over the match and individual sets - if these scores are very close together but one player is a break up, it's often a sign that the match is quite close and could still go either way. Laying the fave is often the way to go in those matches. As I say, the points don't tell you the whole story, but you should still keep a close eye on those stats.

In all honesty, you do need to put quite a bit of time in on tennis. Particularly if you want to watch the matches. Although I do a bit of tennis betting, I do feel I have enough on my plate with horse racing, and the latter allows me to organise my time better - if I do racing and tennis, I find it very easy to spend my entire day on betting, and that isn't really what I want personally.

However, if you want to find a better way of betting, and fancy becoming proficient at something, I can tell you there's plenty of money to be made on trading tennis matches. Just look to lay low, and get used to having a few matches where you lose small sums - one or two good results will invariably come along and leave you considerably ahead. The more you watch, the better you'll get at spotting a match that could be about to turn around. 

Most important of all though - don't bet on a match just because it's on. If you see no signs of a reversal, don't bet.  Learn to count not losing on a match that you have no fix on as being a victory of sorts!

You know me Paul. Once I get writing....