Image Credit: MARTYN HAYHOW / Stringer / Getty Images.
Evidence has been uncovered today that heavily suggests that professional tennis has been blighted by match fixing over the course of the past decade.
The evidence, obtained by the BBC and BuzzFeed News, includes a series of documents passed over to the news outlets by whistle-blowers with close ties to the sport. The whistle-blowers, who have chosen to remain anonymous, have revealed that 16 players who ranked in the top 50 were repeatedly called into question by the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) due to suspicions that they were throwing their matches, with Wimbledon among the events in which match fixing was suspected to have taken place Among these players were several Grand Slam winners, though they cannot be named because “without access to phone, bank, or computer records it is not possible to prove a link between the players and the gamblers”, according to the BBC.
The allegations began following suspicious betting patterns which took place prior to a 2007 match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello. Though both were cleared by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), a subsequent investigation in 2008 uncovered a number of similarly suspicious matches, which eventually led to the TIU investigating potential corruption in the sport.
However, according to the reports the TIU was insufficient in its handling of the investigation, with a number of sources having provided substantial evidence to the organisation only to have the TIU fail to act accordingly. According to the report, this evidence included suspicious betting alerts from the European Sports Security Association (ESSA) “involving 15 of the players whose names have repeatedly been flagged to the authorities”, along with “49 suspicious matches in the first three quarters of last year alone”. ESSA warned the TIU in three successive reports that “tennis attracts more dubious betting activity than any other sport.”
Nikolay Davydenko’s (pictured) match against Martin Vassallo Arguello led to the investigation of potential match-fixing in tennis. (Image Credit: PETER PARKS / Staff / Getty Images)
Despite this, the TIU did not request in-depth information from the gamblers that had been deemed suspicious, meaning that an investigation into the potential match fixing had been deemed “virtually impossible.” With some of the suspicious players having been on the radar of tennis authorities since 2003, the lack of an adequate investigation by the TIU has raised concerns, with former police chief constable Benn Gunn saying that tennis needs “an integrity unit with teeth.” Gunn headed up an investigation into betting in tennis that ultimately led to the creation of the TIU, though he has raised concerns over the organisation’s behaviour following the release of this evidence, telling the BBC: “There is an element of actually keeping things under wraps.”
The ATP’s head Chris Kermode brushed off these new allegations, denying that evidence of match-fixing had “been suppressed for any reason or isn’t being thoroughly investigated”, adding: “While the BBC and BuzzFeed reports mainly refer to events from about 10 years ago, we will investigate any new information.”
It remains to be seen whether there will be any police involvement in these allegations, or whether further evidence will be brought to light following the unveiling of these documents. However, regardless of the course of events that will transpire following the BBC/BuzzFeed report, it is undeniable that the credibility of the sport has taken a significant knock today.
