Speculate on Tennis

Tennis is the third-most popular sport on television in China, only behind football and basketball.

With the success of the Tennis competitions at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, the popularity of Tennis in China has soared.

The women's singles event proved notable for being one of only two Olympiads - and the first since 1908 - in which all medalists were from the same country (Russia).

Despite their singles victories, however, the Russian women failed to advance past the quarterfinals of the women's doubles.

Instead, the United States women's team captured the gold. The only time the US women's team failed to get the gold was during the event's re-introduction at the Seoul games.

Chinese women tennis players blaze the trail in the Chinese tennis scene today. However, it was the men who made the initial breakthrough. In 2003, at the Heineken Open in Shanghai, wildcards Zeng Shao Xuan and Zhu Benqiang made an important advance. They became the first players from China to reach a tour-level doubles final.

Manwhile, Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won the doubles gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

In 2006, Chinese tennis players captured prominence when Zheng Jie and Yan Zi won doubles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Li Na at the same Wimbledon year, became the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam singles quarter-final and also the first player from China to be ranked in the world's top 20. Li Na and Zheng Jie were also the first players to compete in an all-Chinese final - in Estoril (Portugal) in 2006.

At Wimbledon in 2008, Zheng Jie became first Chinese player ever to reach semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament, and in 2009, became the first Chinese player to be ranked in the world's top 15.

Speculating on Tennis matches does not include point spreads, all that matters is who wins or loses. This is where money line wagering comes in.

Money line results are decided by the straight-up winner of a match. A Tennis money line usually looks like:

Li Na	+175
Venus Williams	-225

In the example above, Li Na is the underdog, marked by the "+". Betting $100 on her would give you a $175 profit if she wins the match. On the other hand, Venus Williams is the favorite, marked by the "-" sign. Betting $225 on her would give you $100 profit if she wins the match.

Sportsbooks also allow you to speculate on the outright winner of Badminton tournaments, like who would win in the Olympics or the BWF World Championships - these are called Propositions. A typical Tennis Proposition looks like:

US Open - Men's singles
N Djokovic	8/11
A Murray	11/4
S Wawrinka	12/1
M Raonic	12/1
R Nadal	16/1
K Nishikori	25/1
M Cilic	33/1
J M del Potro	25/1
N Kyrgios	33/1
G Dimitrov	50/1