With the start of the 2025 tennis season looming, Andy Schooler takes a look at the women’s antepost markets of the four Grand Slam tournaments.
Tennis antepost betting tips: 2025 season
1pt e.w. Qinwen Zheng in the French Open at 20/1 (betway)
1pt e.w. Ons Jabeur for Wimbledon at 40/1 (Unibet, BetMGM)
From the start of 2017 until the enforced break for the COVID pandemic, the 13 Grand Slam tournaments played produced 11 different female winners.
With Serena Williams on the wane, the women’s game became known for its unpredictability, but things have changed.
Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka have positioned themselves as the best two players in the game with the past two years seeing the pair fighting it out between them for the world number one ranking.
While Swiatek won that race in 2023, Sabalenka took the honours in 2024, albeit aided by Swiatek’s brief period of suspension for a failed drugs test for which she has been attributed “no significant fault or negligence”.
Between them, the duo have won seven of the last 11 Slams and hold favouritism for all four in 2025 – Swiatek is odds-on to win a fifth French Open in six years, while Sabalenka is the market leader at the other three.
Some will find it difficult to oppose them but it’s notable that the women’s game has still managed to produce some big-priced champions in that period with Marketa Vondrousova and Barbora Krejcikova both winning Wimbledon at triple-figure prices in the past two years.
I’m not promising to pick out the next such player but let’s take a look and see if we can find any antepost value ahead of the 2025 campaign…
Australian Open
- When: January 12-26
- Where: Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia
- TV: Eurosport
With not a lot of time between now and the first Grand Slam event of the season – less than a month in fact – what I’m looking for here is someone who may be able to carry momentum from 2024 into the new campaign.
Steering away from the obvious – Sabalenka, WTA Finals winner Coco Gauff – two players catch the eye at big prices.
First up is Paula Badosa, a player who really surged back towards the top of the game during the second half of last season.
At the end of June, the former world number two was ranked outside the top 100 but from that point she won 24 of her 31 matches, claiming the title in Washington and making the US Open quarter-finals.
She went 6-6 in that period against top-20 players and finished the year 12th in the ranking list; some rise in such a short period and one which earned her the WTA comeback player of the year award.
We know Badosa has the power from the back of the court to compete at the highest level – it is less than three years since she was at number two – and she’s been putting in the hard yards during her off-season in Dubai, hitting the practice courts with former world number one Simona Halep.
Admittedly, Badosa has never been beyond the last 16 in Melbourne but she has won a warm-up event (Sydney) in Australia before and if she gets straight back in the groove for appearances in Brisbane and Adelaide in the coming weeks, she could well go off shorter than BetVictor’s 70/1.
The other player in my thoughts is Emma Raducanu, another who impressed, at times, in 2024.
Injuries hampered the 2021 US Open champion but when she did play, the Briton managed to post 12 top-50 wins – the best such tally of any player ranked outside the top 50.
Raducanu was sidelined in the autumn and has since admitted “that was a bit of a turning point” during which she sat down and asked: “Next year, what do I want for myself?”
One of the conclusions was focusing more on “the physical stuff” – Naomi Osaka’s former trainer Yutaka Nakamura has been hired – and Raducanu is planning to play a busier schedule in 2025 in bid “to see how far I can go”.
It’s obviously easier said than done but the 22-year-old has big weapons in her serve and forehand and, importantly, has proved she’s capable of winning at the top level.
I’m certainly interested in seeing how she performs in the early weeks and am not convinced she’ll be going off at 75/1 for this title.
French Open
- When: May 25-June 8
- Where: Roland Garros, Paris, France
- TV: Eurosport
Iga Swiatek has dominated on the clay of Roland Garros – she looks destined to go down as one of the greats on this surface having already joined Justine Henin as a four-time winner in Paris.
But does anyone really want to be backing an odds-on shot this far out?
That’s even before we consider the possibility of a WADA appeal against her short ban for her doping violation – that’s what’s happened in Jannik Sinner’s not dissimilar case.
Still, even assuming, as we surely must at this point, that the Pole makes it to the start line, it’s worth remembering what happened to Swiatek on her last visit to this venue.
That was at the Olympic Games where QINWEN ZHENG upset her in the semi-finals.
There are several players shorter than Zheng in the current betting but, to me, she looks arguably the most likely to dethrone Swiatek.
That Olympics success (she went on to win the gold medal) will give her a mental boost heading into this year’s tournament and, potentially, add a little pressure to the defending champion.
It sticks in my mind that Zheng’s former coach Wim Fisette said clay was her best surface.
“The heaviness of her forehand, her movement, her quickness on the court – everything kind of comes together on the clay,” was his exact quote. Interestingly, he is now in the Swiatek camp.
Yes, Swiatek remains the one they all have to beat but if she is to falter, Zheng looks well placed to capitalise.
Wimbledon
- When: June 30-July 13
- Where: All England Club, Wimbledon, London, England, UK
- TV: BBC
Like the clay, the grass presents a different challenge – something that’s reflected in the huge-priced winners of the last two years.
With the grasscourt season being so short, it’s one which has often seen the big names struggle to adapt.
Swiatek is a case in point – she’s yet to go beyond the last eight here. Even antepost favourite Sabalenka, whose big serve is a massive weapon on the surface, hasn’t yet been to the final.
To twist a Morrissey lyric, some girls are better than others, regularly delivering good results on a surface they are happy to play on – just being comfortable on the grass puts them one step ahead of many straight away.
The aforementioned Emma Raducanu is one and I can certainly see her being shorter than 50/1 come June. The home hope has been to the second week in two of her three appearances in SW19 and, when in form, should fear few on grass.
Donna Vekic is another. She had long promised a deep run at Wimbledon with her grasscourt results and in 2024 she delivered, reaching the semi-finals. Odds of 80/1 about the Olympic silver medallist look a tad large.
However, the player I like the most is ONS JABEUR.
The wide variety in the Tunisian’s game has reaped great dividends on the grass with Jabeur making the Wimbledon final in both 2022 and 2023.
A shoulder injury affected her in 2024 and it ended her season during the summer hardcourt campaign.
A recurrence is clearly the big worry for backers at this stage but the player herself has spoken positively about her recovery, saying she is feeling “much better” and has also “recovered mentally” due to a break from the tour.
“I’m ready and very motivated and honestly hungry to play matches,” she added last month.
There’s obvious risk here – we can’t be sure if Jabeur will return to her best, she is 30 now after all – but if she’s competitive on the tour in the first half of the year, then she should be among the favourites for this title, not out at 40/1.
US Open
- When: August 25-September 7
- Where: Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York, USA
- TV: Sky Sports
A lot can happen between now and September and this market could well be shaken up.
Looking at potential breakthrough stars, I’m drawn towards Linda Noskova.
She climbed into the top 30 in 2024, a season which saw her claim her maiden WTA title, although you may remember her better for her upset of Iga Swiatek at the Australian Open.
The latest player to emerge from the Czech system, Noskova would likely have finished even higher had it not been for the death of her mother in the summer – she would spend two months out after the US Open.
Noskova has been labelled an old head on young shoulders for her strong mental approach – she only turned 20 last month – and her game looks very solid off both wings.
I feel Noskova will rightly be looking to push on towards the top 10 this year and if that happens then she’s surely going off shorter than 70/1 for the US Open.
Posted at 1440 GMT on 19/12/24
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