Tennis before the first serve: Morocco's tournaments, the ATP and WTA tours and the betting rules
In tennis, one player faces another in singles, or two face two in doubles, across a net that splits a rectangular court, 23.77 metres in length, into two halves. Whoever serves puts the ball in play; the opponent waiting to return it is the receiver. Points add up to games, games to sets, and sets to the match.
Morocco on the tennis map: Marrakech, Rabat, Davis Cup
Africa has a single ATP Tour stop, and it is Moroccan: the Grand Prix Hassan II, an ATP 250 on clay in Marrakech. It was born in Casablanca in 1984 as a Challenger, joined the ATP Tour in 1990 and settled in Marrakech in 2016. Home players have won it too: Younes El Aynaoui in 2002 and, before him, Hicham Arazi in 1997.
Event | Category and setting | Most recent or upcoming |
|---|---|---|
Grand Prix Hassan II | ATP 250, clay, Royal Tennis Club de Marrakech | 40th edition, 30 March to 5 April 2026; champion: Rafael Jódar of Spain |
Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem | WTA 250, outdoor red clay, Union Sportive des Cheminots du Maroc, Rabat | 24th edition, 18 to 23 May 2026, 32-player singles draw |
Davis Cup, World Group II | Morocco v Nigeria, clay, Rabat | 19 and 20 September 2026; Morocco won 4-0 |
Davis Cup, World Group I play-offs | Switzerland v Morocco (Switzerland has choice of ground) | 5 to 7 February 2027 |
The 2026 title in Rabat went to Croatia's Petra Marčinko after her Ukrainian opponent retired in the final, and Moroccan wildcard Yasmine Kabbaj made the quarter-finals. Karim Bennani, Yassine Dlimi and Younes Lalami played in the win over Nigeria; the February tie puts a World Group I place at stake.
From Masters 1000 to WTA 125: where the line's tournaments sit
Besides the ATP Finals and the United Cup, the ATP grades the events of its own circuit as Masters 1000, 500 or 250, and the Challenger Tour is a separate category under the same governing body. The WTA Tour runs on WTA 1000, 500 and 250 tournaments, while WTA 125 events have their own calendar. The four Grand Slams, held in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York, form a category of their own.
Shanghai's Masters 1000 is an autumn fixture that dates from 2009. It is played on hard courts at the Qi Zhong Tennis Center with 96 players in the singles draw, and its organisers bill it as the one Masters 1000 outside North America and Europe. Its matches reach the line in tournament week, under Shanghai's Masters 1000 schedule.
Wuhan stages a WTA 1000 on outdoor hard courts; its venue is the Optics Valley International Tennis Centre. For 2026, its ninth edition, the WTA described it as the closing WTA 1000 of the season; 56 players make up the singles draw. Once its week comes, the line adds Wuhan's women's matches.
Events from the WTA 125 calendar are listed too, such as the WTA 125 tournament in Mallorca: outdoor clay in Spain, with 2026 only its second edition after a first in October 2025.
Set rules, five-setters and a retirement: who decides
The rules below come from different rule books:
ITF Rules of Tennis (the ITF now goes by World Tennis): six games with a two-game lead take a set. At six-all, a tie-break set goes to a tie-break, first to seven points and two clear; an advantage set runs on until one side is two games up, and the event announces in advance which format it uses.
Grand Slam Board, deciding set at the four Slams: since Roland-Garros 2022, six-all in the final set brings a tie-break to 10, still won by two points or more, and the 2026 rule book keeps it.
Grand Slam rule book, men's singles: only main-draw men's singles at the Slams are best of five, three sets to win. Everything else there is best of three unless the tournament decides otherwise.
ATP and WTA rulebooks: singles on the ATP Tour and the Challenger Tour, finals included, and singles at all WTA tournaments are best of three sets with tie-breaks.
The site's tennis betting rules: if a player withdraws or is disqualified and the match stops, the match-winner bet holds only when the first set had been completed; if not, it is settled at odds of 1. Bets on any other outcome of the match are cancelled, again at odds of 1, unless that outcome was already certain at the stoppage, and the player who withdrew or was disqualified is counted as beaten.
Because tennis has no draw, a match always ends with a winner, and the site shows the two possible results as W1 and W2.
Pre-match first, then live
On 1xBet, a tennis bet can go on before the first point (Line) or during play (Live), and live tennis betting holds the matches already in progress.
To follow a game in play, read the score from the server's side, which is announced first: love when no point has been won, then 15, 30, 40, and the game on the next point. At three points apiece it is deuce; the next point earns advantage, and a second point in a row wins the game, otherwise it is back to deuce.
Every other sport's upcoming events sit in the all-sports pre-match line.