I love finding something new that I love. Just a few months ago, my wife and I found the show
on Netflix called “The New Girl.” It’s a stupid show but a great comedy. Once you get to know
the characters, you fall in love with them. And, I can honestly say that I look forward to when we
get the kids down every night so we can get one, two, and sometimes even three episodes in.
Kekambasdfs is one of two tennis experts helping our members become better tennis players. Both Kekambasdfs and EricF have cheatsheet coverage, a consensus page for comparison, and they are both very active in our strategic discussions.
What does this have to do with DFS Tennis you may ask? I fully believe that once you taste the
fun that DFS Tennis can be you’ll be hooked. There’s only one other DFS sport that is remotely
close to tennis in structure and that’s MMA. You roster six individual players who will each play
six individual matches that last roughly 25 minutes to an hour. The pace is fairly quick as you
watch your player rack up points or slowly lose them as they lose. The slates last around 6-8
hours typically and the lock times for each slate are all over the map as each tournament jumps
from country to country. It truly is fun to have something to watch when the rest of the DFS
world is silent. The tournaments that are being played now lock in the evening and your players
could play at 11 pm, midnight, 1 am, 2 am, or even 3 am. It’s insomnia-producing at times but
it also helps you to wake up at your first alarm to see if you made money or lost money that
night. It truly brings into play the advice Robert Kiyosaki gives to “Learn how to make money
while you’re asleep.”
Become Profitable in Tennis
On that note…to the big question. How do you make money in DFS Tennis? I’m so glad you
asked because that’s the exact reason I wanted to write this article. I want to give newbies
everywhere a baseline of what to look for as you attempt to build your first tennis lineup on
DraftKings or even Fanduel (FD is completely unpredictable if they’ll have tennis or not).
We cover each and every tennis slate that gets posted at DFS Army with a comprehensive
cheat sheet breaking down the following for each match. I love playing DFS Tennis and I also
love talking shop with our very smart and sharp members who play as well. Then, when the
contests lock, we celebrate together and we tilt together. I would love to have you join the
banter and experience the joy of DFS Tennis.
Before I get into my four things to consider, I want to give you my biggest tip! I would attempt
to roster five Vegas favorites each slate and one underdog. A mistake too many people make
when building cash lineups is rostering someone that’s pretty highly priced because they think
they bring security. In reality, they drastically decrease the overall security of your entire lineup.
3 Fundamentals, a 4th, and a Bonus!
There are three main things to consider when rostering a player:
1. Vegas Odds
Vegas odds are going to be by and away the biggest driver in a player’s ownership in any given
contest. Vegas posts the lines for each match fairly early and that’s how DK/FD produce
salaries. As the lines are bet on though they move thus giving a discrepancy between the
pricing of a player and their current market odds in a match. I am of the belief that the odds are
important and should be heavily considered in cash games, but doing what everyone else does
will get you what everyone else gets. If you want to take home a gpp or find yourself ahead of
the cash line more often than not I would suggest basing your lineup off more than just Vegas. Everyone is doing that. So what else is there to look at?
2. Recent Form
I rely on a website to find great data quickly on recent form for each player
(www.tennisabstract.com). Tennis is a streaky sport similar to golf and when players find
something that is working it typically results in them going on a run of great tennis. I am looking
for players who have won the matches they’ve supposed to and snuck a couple upsets in there
as well. If you ride players who are playing well, you will find value that others may be
overlooking when just going by what Vegas says. To me, this is my favorite thing to look at and I
will weight it over Vegas most times.
3. Court History
This one is interesting but some players play better on different courts. There are three different
court types in tennis: hard, grass, and clay. On tennis abstract (www.tennisabstract.com), you
can see how each player has performed on each type over the past year. It’s a great place to
catch if there’s a player who is better on different surfaces. The more you play DFS Tennis
you’ll start to know who these players are without having to look.
4. Head to Head
Finally, there’s head to head. I believe head to head is a valuable stat but I want to make a point
here. A head to head match that happened five years ago is going to mean way less than a
head to head match that happened two weeks ago. You need context to understand the value
of head to head history. Players change their game throughout the course of the year not to
mention years. I believe as a generalization those that play DFS Tennis tend to overvalue head
to head history as they are choosing players.
Bonus tip: When rostering underdogs look for those that have higher ace percentages. DK’s
scoring system overvalues this stat above any other allowing those who score a ton of aces
(think John Isner) to have a great floor even in a loss. You can find these stats easily on tennis
abstract (www.tennisabstract.com)
Like I said earlier, I would love to have you join the banter and experience the joy of DFS
Tennis. It may just be that you love it as much as I do and you find out you’ve been missing
out. That’s enough from me for now, my wife is getting tired of waiting on me to start our next New Girl episode.
(Transferred by Word document to WordPress….spacing issues to be fixed at a later date.)