Why? Tell me Why?

Is it some tournaments are easier to figure out than others? Do players just play with more motivation to win at some and less at others? Seems as a waste of travel money and everything else to travel all over the world and not have a desire to stay in top form winning tournament to tournament

6 of the Top 8 seeds are out before the Quarterfinals at the Mubadala AD Open

#2 Badosa (Noskova)

#3 Kasatkina (Krueger)

#4 Putintseva (Vondrousova)

#5 Samsonova (Kudermetova)

#6 Pavlyuchenkova (Linette)

#7 Ostapenko (Jabeur)

#1 Rybakina and #8 Fernandez still alive!

I recommend reading “Hard Courts” It’s an oldy but a goody. Talks about the new bargaining agreements with the Players Association and the ATP.

If you want my interpretation of it, yes. Top players on guarantees will show up to smaller tournaments and be gone by the QF’s or earlier if the points don’t have meaning to them.

A friend of mine was the GM at a major tournament for like 10 years. He told me one time he had made arrangements to drive Philippoussis to the airport on the Thursdays morning and he still hadn’t played his Wednesday match. If Mark had won that match, he was going to take a W/O the next day because he was leaving the tournament.

Women's tennis can be one of the most volatile sports. Often what seems easy is not, and what seems unthinkable actually happens. This volatility can make betting difficult but it is also what presents huge opportunities from time to time. 

But motivation can also be a huge factor but you really have to pay attention to subtle cues. The very best few players can win tournaments by running on cruise control for most of a tournament until really pushing the accelerator in late rounds. But for most players it takes giving their everything to win a title and during a long, grueling season it isn't sustainable from a fitness perspective to do that week in and week out. So you are left trying to figure out where the motivation lies.

Defending points or having a recent tumble in the rankings can be a very motivating factor. But honestly with some women you'll see pressure like that get to them, causing them to perform worse. But whether you're a top 10 player or top 50 player maintaining your ranking is all that matters. Winning every tournament is not the goal. Once you your ranking drops it's literally like getting a pay cut at work. You stop getting direct entries into tournaments, stop being seeded making your path more difficult, and on top of it stop accruing ranking points for showing up. A player who gets a direct main draw entry into a major gets a 6 figure paycheck now. There are plenty of players in the #20 to 50 range who literally have zero desire or aspirations to be a top 10 player. But what's important to them is that they play in, and advance in, the right tournaments to maintain the status quo.

The two others gave good answers for this - but if this is mostly regarding your Badosa bet - Noskova is insane, if she wins or loses doesn’t depend so much on how her opponents play or if they are hot atm etc. - if Noskova is fired up - very few players on tour can stop her - and Badosa is the most swingy player in top 10 without a close contender 

@Calde13

 Yep. She has been insane here. After watching her against Frech today's result really wasn't a surprise. I'm thinking about taking her future at +500. If Rybakina loses before the final Noskova's odds will plummet and if it's Rybakina in the final Noskova can certainly beat her in this form. 

Also since we were talking about motivation, Noskova had a bunch of points to defend during the Australian swing and she failed to, which has caused her to drop 13 spots this year already. Seems like a pretty good time to take home a 500 title.

Tell me lies

tell me sweet little lies