The US Open Series begins in earnest this week, with many of the tour's biggest names returning to action at the ATP 500 in Washington, while others begin their hard-court campaigns at the ATP 250 in Las Vegas. With the North American swing now in full flow, every match becomes crucial as players look to build form and confidence ahead of the season's final Grand Slam.

The WTA Tour also heads to the United States, with a WTA 500 in Washington and a WTA 250 in Memphis kicking off the North American hard-court swing. Several leading players return to competition this week, making it the first real indication of who is best prepared for the road to the US Open.

Watch tennis live streaming with many bookmakers such as bet365 and Stake offering live stream services. Tennis tournaments take place almost every week of the year across time zones that guarantees action on a regular basis.  Read our tennis live streaming guide and find out where you can watch tennis online.

Check out our tennis bet of the day from betting markets including player win, game handicap, total games over/under or a win in straight sets.

Betting on tennis is offered by every main online sportsbook which caters for fans of tennis betting accordingly, offering a wide range of betting markets and live in-play betting options.

With players needing to win at least six games to win a set, and at least two sets (more in men’s slams) to win a match, tennis lends itself superbly well to live in-play betting. 

On average, a service game takes five minutes to play, during which time the server will have either held serve, or the receiver will have broken serve and on the game. 

Betting on a tennis match will have a guaranteed result to wager every five minutes, and at the very least will have 12 such betting options within the course of a 90 minute match. Few other sports offer such guaranteed action.

Winner: Backing the winner in a sporting event remains the most straightforward and popular form of betting of them all. Choose a game and pick the player you think will win, then bet on them accordingly.

Games Handicap: This is one of the most popular current bets in tennis, and allows the bettor the opportunity to wager on top seeds in the early rounds, when the odds would be so overwhelmingly in their favor there would be little or no value in a regular To Win bet. 

Imagine a player ranked in the world’s top five is taking on somebody ranked outside the world’s top 100 in the opening round of an event. Normally there would be no value in backing the favorite to win.

But, if instead you back the favorite to lose no more than five games during the match, i.e. winning by a score line of 6-3 6-2 for example, you would suddenly receive far better odds, and a bet could be worth making.

Set Betting: With this bet you are choosing the winner of the game, and if they will win by two sets to zero, or two sets to one. 

For example, if Roger Federer is playing Rafael Nadal, and you think Federer will win in straight sets, you would back him to win 2-0. If you think that Rafa might take a set off Roger before losing, you would back Federer to win 2-1.

Total Games: Luckily, this bet doesn’t require a bettor to predict exactly how many games will take place during a match. Instead, they are given the option of going either over or under a specific number. 

If Federer and Nadal are playing each other, and you believe the match will go the three-set distance - and all three sets will be close - you could bet that the Total Games will be Under 29.5. 

This means that if for example Nadal were to win by a score line of 6-7  7-5  6-4, you would lose your bet, as the total number of games is 32. However, If you had bet Over 29.5, you would have won.