Tennis betting tips: 2025 women's WTA Tour season preview and best antepost bets

Tennis ante-post betting tips: WTA Tour 2025 season

0.5pt Qinwen Zheng to be year-end world number one at 20/1 (Unibet, BetMGM)

1pt Aryna Sabalenka to reach four Grand Slam semi-finals at 5/1 (bet365)

4pts Linda Noskova to finish in the top 20 at evens (Unibet, BetMGM)

2pts Beatriz Haddad Maia to finish in the top 20 at 27/20 (Unibet, BetMGM)

2.5pts Rebecca Sramkova to finish in the top 50 at 6/5 (Unibet, BetMGM)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Year-end number one

Frankly, the range of markets for the 2025 WTA Tour season isn’t great but one we always get at this time of year regards who finishes the year as world number one.

That honour went to Aryna Sabalenka in 2024, the Belarusian pipping Iga Swiatek to top spot in a reversal of the 2023 positions.

Those two have been the best two players by a distance for the last couple of years. Others have been able to compete in spells – think Elena Rybakina and Coco Gauff – but they’ve lacked the consistency and/or fitness to truly challenge the duopoly.

It’s 6/4 each of two heading into the new campaign and, if pushed, I’d side with Sabalenka.

As discussed in my recent ante-post Grand Slam preview, she’s favourite for three of the four Grand Slam tournaments and is very capable on all three surfaces.

Swiatek remains notably weaker on the grass and that could ultimately be her undoing in this market.

Sabalenka has been remarkably consistent over the past couple of seasons – more on that shortly – and, for me, she’s the one to beat, especially when you consider the possibility of a World Anti-Doping Agency appeal against Swiatek’s recent one-month doping ban.

WADA appealed Jannik Sinner’s verdict and there are some who feel they will consider a similar approach here given the uproar caused by what many felt was a lenient sentence.

However, locking your money up for 10 months on a 6/4 shot doesn’t make huge appeal and so, for those seeking a longer shot, Qinwen Zheng is worth considering at 20/1.

After all, Sabalenka went off at that price two years ago and came within one win of landing the prize.

In 2024, Zheng made the Australian Open final, won the Olympic gold medal in the summer and finished runner-up at the season-ending WTA Finals. Those efforts saw her end the year fifth in the WTA rankings.

Still only 22 – the youngest member of the top 10 – there looks to be more to come from the Chinese star, who boasts big weapons in her first serve and crunching forehand.

Coach Pere Riba recently pointed those weapons out in an interview, adding his charge was improving with each passing month.

Notably, he said: “I don’t see that she’s at the top of her potential. To be honest, I think she is at 60% of what she can be. And this gives me a lot of confidence that she’s going to be one day there, I really believe that.”

OK, so you wouldn’t expect him to talk his player down but it does, to some extent, back up my assessment that there is more to come from Zheng.

A small bet at 20/1 might just be a runner.

To reach four Grand Slam semi-finals

I touched on Aryna Sabalenka’s consistency above and this is a market where we can potentially capitalise on that.

The world number one has reached the semi-finals in seven of her last eight Grand Slam appearances.

She landed this bet in 2023 but it fell last season when she lost in the last eight of the French Open, on a day when she struggled with illness.

That goes to show the brittle nature of this bet but it could still be worth pursuing.

In that eight-Slam run, Sabalenka has suffered only five defeats and three of them have come against members of the world’s top six.

In short, it usually takes a good player to beat her – and the world number one doesn’t have to play the best until the later stages of Slams - so 5/1 is worth a small play.

To finish in the top 20

A couple of prices stand out in this market.

First let’s look at Linda Noskova, a player who finished the year 26th in the WTA ranking list following a season in which she won her maiden title in Monterrey.

The Czech, who has only just turned 20, beat Iga Swiatek at the Australian Open and has been lauded for her strong mental approach to the game – she rarely looks flustered on court and is able to produce her best on big points.

Noskova may well have finished in the top 20 in 2024 but for the death of her father during Wimbledon – she ended up not playing on the tour after the US Open.

A six-place climb for the youngster looks very possible.

Secondly, the more experienced Beatriz Haddad Maia looks a big price at 27/20.

She’s been a near-permanent fixture of the top 20 for three years now, posting year-end finishes of (most recent first) 17-11-15.

OK, she’s now 28 – relatively old for a WTA player – but a player who can compete on all surfaces looks far from finished.

In fact, her best tennis of 2024 came during the second half of the campaign and she’ll be keen to continue that momentum when plays gets under way in Australia.

She reached the final in Cleveland before making the last eight of the US Open. Then, during the Asian swing, she claimed her first title of the season in Seoul, meaning she heads into 2025 having won 18 of her last 24 matches.

The price just looks out and worth backing.

To finish in the top 50

Rebecca Sramkova recently made my list of ‘players to watch’ in 2025 and I’m surprised to see her odds-against about maintaining her place in the top 50.

Anyone who saw the Slovak lead her country to the Billie Jean King Cup final last month cannot fail to have been impressed.

It capped an excellent breakthrough season for Sramkova, who started off by starring on the second-tier ITF World Tour before making the most of her opportunities on the WTA circuit.

She produced a 71% win ratio at tour level and has made the transition to the top table seamlessly.

It’s all come as something of a surprise – Sramkova is a late bloomer at 28 and has spent most of her career in the lower echelons of the game.

However, she’s certainly not looked out of place in the last six months and is sitting at 46 in the WTA list for good reason.

That will open up more opportunities – entry into bigger events where more ranking points are on offer – and while it’s easy to suggest the Slovak will be unable to maintain her level in 2025, I’m far from convinced that will happen.

Posted at 1220 GMT on 23/12/24

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