Andy Murray may be slowly rediscovering his form following injury after reaching the French Open semi-finals, but for those watching rather than playing the sport what are the best ways to try and net from betting on tennis?

Murray may have experienced some difficulties since his Wimbledon triumph last year after undergoing back surgery and splitting from coach Ivan Lendl.

But the Scot continues to be a draw to punters who fancy a stroke of fixed odds or spread betting on tennis.

Indeed, with Roger Federer’s powers now waning and Rafael Nadal himself suffering with injury issues as well as Murray, the men’s game has started to lose something of its predictability, as seen by Stan Wawrinka winning the Australian Open only to tumble out at the first round of the French Open last month.

Novak Djokovic aside perhaps, this has meant that the sure thing bet on Federer/Nadal/Murray to beat some no-hoper in the early stages of a major tournament is now not as safe a bet as perhaps it was a few years ago.

And it also gives punters the chance to try and make some money by picking out some upsets, such as Ernests Gulbis’ defeat of Federer in Paris this week.

In the women’s game too, shocks are now a more regular occurrence as Serena Williams’ early exit at Roland Garros also proved. But for those who don’t normally bet on the sport, what are the most popular tennis spread betting and fixed odds markets for punters?

Fixed odds betting on tennis

When placing fixed odds bets on tennis, the obvious place to start is the simple match odds outcome for either player A or player B to win the game.

However for early rounds of tournaments, the favourite in the bigger matches is usually a very short price, offering only small opportunities for profits if you’re backing the favourite.

Alternatively you can bet on the number of sets to be completed in the match, the actual score in sets, the winner of each specific set, the number of games to be completed in a specific set or the actual score in each specific set.

Going down to game level, you can bet on the winner of each specific game, the score a named player will win that game by or, if the set goes to a tiebreak, the final winning tiebreak score.

The range of bets is fairly exhaustive and allows for punters to get involved in more instant in-play action with shorter bets as well as bets that will take in the full duration of the match.

Spread betting on tennis

But if that’s not enough, with Spreadex you can also take on the spread betting prices where the action can be even more high octane.

At this point it’s important to note that although the spreads can offer the chance of some high make-ups and big profits if you get your bet right, you can end up losing more than your initial stake should the bet go against you.

The most popular market for spread betters on the tennis are the Supremacy markets – Game Supremacy, Points Supremacy or the 10-5 Match Supremacy markets.

Here the spread betting firms create a spread based on which player they think will come out on top against another either based on who will win the most games in the match, the most points or on a 10-5 Supremacy basis, where the winner is awarded 10 points plus a further five points per set won by.

So in the fourth round against Fernando Verdasco, Murray’s 10-5 Supremacy quote was 3.5 – 5.5. Murray won in straight sets so the market made up at 25 (10 points for the win plus an extra 15 for the three sets won by). Therefore a £10 buy at 5.5 would have returned £195 ((25 – 5.5) x £10).

Remember though, this market can have a negative make-up should the underdog win. So if Verdasco had triumphed by 3 sets to 2 for the sake of argument, the make-up would have been -15 (10 points to Verdasco plus a further five for the one set won by). In this case the £10 buy of Murray at 5.5 would have lost £205 ((-5.5 – 15) x £10).

For the Game and Points Supremacy markets, the eventual match winner may not necessarily end up with the most games or points won, particularly if it is a very close encounter. So a bet on these markets is not solely based on who ends up winning the match.

As well as betting on which player will get more games or points than the other, you can take on a spread betting firm’s prediction of the total number of games, points, aces, or double faults a player will record in a match. If you think the spread is too low, then buy on the price. If you think the spread firm has gone too high with their prediction, then sell on the price.

If you want to bet on a match without taking a particular view on either player then you can bet on the Total Points, Total Games or Total Sets played out over the match.

And for some real excitement, why not take on the X-Courts market, a spread based on Player A’s games won multiplied by Player B’s games won for each set, aggregated.

So when Murray toughed out a 12-10 final set win over Philip Kohlschreiber in the fourth round of the French Open this week for a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 12-10 win, the X-Courts market made up at 198 ((3 x 6) + (6 x 3) + (6 x 3) + (4 x 6) + (12 x 10)). Tennis spread betters who bought X-Courts at 97 made 101 times their stake.

Again, it’s worth remembering that should a player win 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, then X-Courts would make-up at 0, so if that had happened in the Murray v Kohlschreiber match, then anyone buying X-Courts at 97 would have lost 97 times their stake.

As with the fixed odds, all the spread betting market selections are offered per set as well as for the entire match meaning that whether you like fixed odds or spreads and whether you prefer to bet over the whole course of the match or in-play, Spreadex really is the ace choice when it comes to betting on tennis.