With homegrown players such as Pete Sampras and Pam Shriver, Maryland has genuinely earned a reputation for loving tennis.
Sampras, from Potomac, won 14 major men’s singles titles mostly in the 1990s, including seven championships at Wimbledon. Shriver, from Baltimore, won the Wimbledon women’s doubles five times in the 1980s with partner Martina Navratilova, among the McDonogh School graduate’s many career triumphs.
There is a calendar overlap of this year’s Wimbledon (qualifying started June 26, main draw runs July 3-16), and National Tennis Week (June 25-July 1) in America. So BetMaryland.com took a break from reviewing Maryland sports betting apps to determine which states love tennis the most.
As it turns out, Maryland ranks fairly high in its enthusiasm for tennis.
Most Tennis-Loving States
Tennis As a Sports Betting Option
The recent increased accessibility of sports gambling – including Maryland sports betting options with both retail and online operators – has helped propel tennis to where it’s become a popular betting proposition.
National Tennis Week came about in 1976 when President Gerald Ford designated the fourth week in June as an occasion to celebrate the sport. In that year, Sweden’s Bjorn Borg won the Wimbledon men’s singles championship and American Chris Evert captured the women’s singles title.
Through the decades, the acceptance of tennis as an international sport was stamped when the sport was re-introduced to the Olympics in 1988. With pro tennis players now competing in the Olympics, some of the most famous names in the sport, such as Serena and Venus Williams, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have all won gold medals either in singles or doubles competition.
Maryland does not just have a storied past to brag about in tennis, either. Frances Tiafoe, born in Hyattsville, is No. 10 this week in the ATP Tour World Rankings and has +7500 odds to win this year’s Wimbledon for customers using the Caesars Maryland promo code.
How We Determined Tennis-Loving States
BetMaryland.com used four combined data points so we could rank all 50 states in order of their enthusiasm for tennis.
The yardsticks were Google Trend’s five-year search interest of two terms – namely “Tennis” and “Tennis Courts Near Me.” Then BetMaryland.com gave five bonus points for states that have a Top 25 city for either players or courts listed on Global Tennis Network.
Using that criteria, The Old Line State – the home of Maryland sportsbook promos – ranked No. 10 in the nation.
For the search interest of the word “tennis”, Maryland earned 45 points. For search interest of “tennis courts near me” the state got 41 points. Maryland did not earn any bonus points for either players or courts listed on Global Tennis Network.
As a result, Maryland’s 86 total points landed it a respectable 10th place in the United States. Of the nine states finishing ahead of Maryland, eight have larger populations and several have much larger populations. The only state with fewer residents to finish ahead of Maryland was ninth-place Connecticut.
