Game, Set and Matched Betting

I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the Ladies final at Wimbledon yesterday so could not resist the chance to benefit from another matched bet offer. This time it was from one of my existing accounts that was offering a £50 free bet on the Men’s final tomorrow if I placed a £50 bet on the score in yesterdays Ladies final.

So I backed Serena Williams to beat her older sister 2-1 with the offsetting lay bet at Betfair creating the following possible outcomes:

	Betfair	Bookmaker	Total
Serena Williams 2-1	-£143.75	£137.50	-£6.25
other score line	£43.94	-£50	-£6.06

This was the best qualifier I could find on this particular market and it meant larger losses than normal for a qualifying bet as there was a big gap between the odds available with the bookmaker and on Betfair. The Williams sisters served up a great match with Venus using her experience to win the match 2-0, before partnering up later in the day to win the doubles together. This result meant I lost £6.06 on the qualifying bet.

The Men’s final saw Federer, the master of Wimbledon in recent years up against Nadal, the young challenger. I used the free bet to back Federer to win 3-1 and with the offsetting lay bet the possible outcomes were:

	Betfair	Bookmaker	Total
Federer wins 3-1	-£166.94	£200	£33.06
other score line	£33.04	Free bet	£33.04

A thrilling final saw Nadal take the first two sets before rain interrupted the 3rd set. Federer came out reinvigorated after the break going on to win both the 3rd and 4th sets by tie break. So a 5th set was needed to separate these players and with the match perfectly poised at 2-2 the clouds carried out their threat and delayed the match yet again.

Play was able to resume at 8.30pm and with the light fading both players continued to hold their serves all the way to six all. Ultimately it was Nadal that was to hold his nerve in the near darkness on centre court, winning his first Wimbledon championship 9-7 in the final set.

This was not only tennis at its very best, but the sort of drama that only sport can produce. Nadal and Federer lived up to the pre-match hype delivering a stunning match that will be remembered for a very long time. And for the record I netted a £26.98 profit from the weekends tennis.