The tennis rules on ScoreMigos
Four bets per match, a draw that unfolds round after round, and a scale that rewards those who dare back the underdog.
Rules written on 16 August 2026, last updated on 6 October 2026.
Points have changed slightly since some tournaments. Their rules are still available, with the points of the time: US Open Hommes 2026 · US Open Dames 2026
Which kind of tournament?
The base scale is the same in every tournament. What changes is the number of rounds to survive, and therefore what the end of the draw is worth. Pick your format: every figure on this page follows.
Grand Slam (128 players, 7 rounds) Masters 1000 (96 players, 7 rounds) Masters 1000 (56 players, 6 rounds) ATP 500 and 250 (32 players, 5 rounds)
Every figure below is for a Masters 1000: 96 players, 7 rounds.
The four bets of a match
Every match in the draw opens the same four bets. Play just one, or all four.
| The bet | What you have to find | Points |
|---|---|---|
| The winner | Who wins the match. The number of points depends on the ranking gap between the two players (see below). | 3 to 14 |
| The set score | The exact set score: 2-0 or 2-1, as these tournaments are played best of three sets. | 5 to 8 |
| The total games | The bracket the match's total number of games falls into. Three brackets per format. | 5 |
| The tie-break | Will there be at least one tie-break in the match? The deciding-set super tie-break counts. | 3 to 5 |
These are the first-round values. The winner and the total games are worth the same in every tournament, from a 250 to a Grand Slam; the set score and the tie-break vary slightly between best of three and best of five sets. That is what makes two tournaments comparable.
The four bets are independent: missing the winner does not stop you scoring on the total games.
Points are multiplied by 1.6 every round
The further you go in the draw, the more a match pays. Each round multiplies a bet's points by 1.6 compared with the previous round. A final pick is therefore worth 17 times a first-round pick.
The points shown on each match already include this multiplier: the "up to X pts" is the real total, there is nothing to multiply. The table below is purely informative: it shows how a match grows in value from round to round.
| Round | Matches | Multiplier | Example: set score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | 32 | ×1 | 5 to 8 |
| Round 2 | 32 | ×1,6 | 8 to 13 |
| Round 3 | 16 | ×2,6 | 13 to 21 |
| Round of 16 | 8 | ×4,1 | 21 to 33 |
| Quarter-final | 4 | ×6,6 | 33 to 53 |
| Semi-final | 2 | ×10,5 | 53 to 84 |
| Final | 1 | ×16,8 | 84 to 134 |
A Masters 1000 has 7 rounds, so its final is worth 16,8 times a first-round match.
Do not misread this: in a Grand Slam, for example, a final pick is worth 17 times a first-round pick, yet the first round still pays 4 times more than the final. There are 64 first-round matches and only one final. The first round remains by far the heaviest round of the tournament.
There are half as many matches each round. If points doubled, every round would carry exactly the same weight, and the final alone would be worth as much as all 64 first-round matches.
But the first three rounds mean 112 matches to predict, and the last three only 7. With doubling, filling in 112 forms would pay the same as filling in 7: consistency would count for nothing. At 1.6, the end of the tournament matters a lot without wiping out the two weeks before it.
Why the winner does not always pay the same
A world number one beating a player ranked one hundred and fiftieth is no feat. The scale says so: the wider the ranking gap, the more the underdog pays and the less the favourite does.
| Ranking gap | If the favourite wins | If the underdog wins |
|---|---|---|
| Two players of similar level, no clear favourite | 6 | 6 |
| Slight gap | 5 | 8 |
| Clear gap | 4 | 10 |
| Wide gap | 4 | 12 |
| David against Goliath | 3 | 14 |
Second seed against a qualifier: backing the favourite pays 3 points, backing the qualifier pays 14. Up to you whether you play it safe or go for the upset.
Tournament predictions
Beyond the matches, a few predictions cover the whole tournament. They lock at the first match and settle as the draw unfolds.
Points for a Masters 1000. Switch format at the top of the page to see the others.
| The bet | What you have to find | Points |
|---|---|---|
| The champion | The tournament champion: whoever lifts the trophy. | 93 |
| A finalist | The finalists: which player from each half of the draw reaches the final. | 46 |
| A semi-finalist | The semi-finals: which player from each quarter reaches the last four. | 31 |
Each tournament prediction only offers players from the relevant part of the draw: naming two semi-finalists from the same quarter is impossible.
This prediction pays its 93 points only if the player you picked wins the tournament. If he falls in the semi-finals or the final, it pays nothing: the question is who wins, not who goes far.
You are rarely left with nothing, though: if you named the same player in all three boxes, the run already pays you through the other two predictions. Here is what a grid following one man collects.
| How far your champion goes | A semi-finalist | A finalist | The champion | What he has earned you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| He goes out before the quarter-finals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| He reaches the quarter-finals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| He reaches the semi-finals | 31 | 0 | 0 | 31 |
| He reaches the final | 31 | 46 | 0 | 77 |
| He wins the tournament | 31 | 46 | 93 | 170 |
That is why the champion does not pay the earlier rounds: the semi-finalist and finalist predictions already do. It rewards the one thing nothing else rewards, winning the tournament.
Where these points come from
Tournament predictions share 4,5 % of a competition's total points. The same share in every tournament, and in every sport.
| Tournament format | Rounds | The champion | A finalist | A semi-finalist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Slam (128 players) | 7 | 109 | 55 | 36 |
| Masters 1000 (96 players) | 7 | 93 | 46 | 31 |
| Masters 1000 (56 players) | 6 | 46 | 23 | 15 |
| ATP 500 and 250 (32 players) | 5 | 23 | 11 | 8 |
A bigger draw has more rounds, so far more points in play. That is why naming the champion of a Grand Slam pays more than four times what naming the champion of an ATP 500 pays: same calculation, only the draw size changes.
Too low and the prediction is pointless. A clean sweep must be worth more than the gap between first and tenth, otherwise reading the whole draw right does not even gain you a place.
Too high and it decides everything. A clean sweep must stay below the gap between first and fiftieth, otherwise seven clicks made before the tournament wipe out a fortnight of daily predictions.
Between the two lies a narrow window, and cycling has always sat in it. Tennis now takes exactly the same share: one figure for every sport.
🧮 How these points were worked out, in detail
Scoring revised on 9 September 2026. Since match points rise with every round, tournament predictions were worth far too little: a semi-finalist called before the draw paid 8 points, while a well predicted quarter-final pays over a hundred. Running competitions were recalculated, which may have shifted a few places in the standings. Changing a scoring system mid-way is never ideal, but leaving a miscalculation in place would have been worse.
Retirements, disqualifications and walkovers
A match stopped before its end, by a retirement or a disqualification: the winner pick counts (the player who moves on to the next round), and the picks on the set score, the total games and the tie-break are cancelled, no points either way.
A walkover before the match: all picks for that match are cancelled, winner included, and the player who goes through still moves on in the draw.
When predictions close
Each match locks at its start. Tournament predictions lock at the first match of the draw.
You can join the contest at any time: points from rounds already played cannot be recovered, but the rest of the draw is still ahead of you.
Arriving late: what it costs
Tournament predictions do not vanish at the first match: you can still fill an empty box, but it is no longer worth full price. The reason is simple: every match played gives you information the others did not have when they answered.
The rule: your box loses the share of the draw already knocked out. An ordinary round knocks out half the players: fully played, it therefore costs half the value, and rounds compound.
| When you fill your box | What it is worth | A semi-finalist worth 31 becomes |
|---|---|---|
| Before the first match of the tournament | 100 % | 31,0 |
| After a quarter of the first round | 91,7 % | 28,4 |
| After half of the first round | 83,3 % | 25,8 |
| First round completed | 66,7 % | 20,7 |
| First two rounds completed | 33,3 % | 10,3 |
| At the start of the round of 16 | 16,7 % | 5,2 |
| At the start of the quarter-finals | 8,33 % | 2,6 |
| At the start of the semi-finals | 4,17 % | 1,3 |
This is why leaving a box empty to wait and see always loses: the option loses value with every match played, half of it by the end of an ordinary round. A box already filled, on the other hand, can never be changed once the lock has passed.
In a Masters 1000, the seeds skip the first round: they come straight in at round 2. A draw of 96 players therefore has only 64 left in round 2: the first round knocks out only a third of the players, and it costs only a third of the value, not half. Once the first round is over, your box is still worth 66,7 %. Same calculation for a draw of 56 players (32 in round 2): 57,1 % remains. Every following round costs half, as everywhere else.
A contest that starts in the middle of the draw counts none of the matches already played: in its standings the information those matches gave is worth nothing, so there is nothing to take off. Your tournament predictions there are worth full price. The same prediction can therefore count 100 %% in one contest and less in another: the discount is computed contest by contest, on the matches that contest actually counts.
Match predictions know no discount: they close at kick-off, for good. There is never any live betting.
The rules for the other sports: