Leading tennis players have slammed a report alleging historical match-fixing by senior players. Jitarth Jai Bharadwaj reports.
The world of competitive tennis has been rocked by allegations of widespread match-fixing. Two media organisations – BBC and Buzzfeed News, claim files have been leaked to them containing evidence of rigged tennis matches.
According to the report, authorities have been repeatedly warned about 16 players ranked in the top 50 who are suspected of throwing matches (deliberately failed to win matches).
The players allegedly involved have not been named, and all were allowed to continue competing.
The allegations arose from an ATP investigation completed in 2008.
The revelations were made just hours before the first major of the year, the Australian Open got underway in Melbourne.
But the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) denies any suggestion evidence of match-fixing in the sport has been suppressed.
ATP President Chris Kermode has flatly denied the allegations of a cover up. And he says there is a zero-tolerance approach to match-fixing and tennis authorities are committed to stamping out corrupt conduct in the sport. "The Tennis Integrity Unit and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that any evidence of match fixing has been suppressed for any reason or isn't being thoroughly investigated. While the BBC and BuzzFeed reports mainly refer to events from about 10 years ago, we will investigate any new information and we always do."
It's alleged the match-fixing was orchestrated by gambling syndicates in Russia and Italy, involved prominent players and included three matches at Wimbledon.
Mr Kermode has acknowledged some degree of match fixing does exist in tennis, as with many sports. But he insists it's at an incredibly low level. "Well, like all sports we're all aware of the potential, you know, risk of match fixing in any sport but I'm confident that tennis is a game of huge integrity and the reason I'm confident of that is that in 2008 all the collective governing bodies in tennis got together and actually formed the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) which is an independent unit solely responsible for investigating and ultimately prosecuting cases of match fixing."
Tennis authorities introduced a new anti-corruption code in 2009 but after taking legal advice were told previous corruption offences could not be pursued.
The BBC and BuzzFeed News were also given the names of other current players they said the T-I-U has repeatedly been warned about by betting organisations, sports integrity units and professional gamblers. Mark Phillips is a betting analyst who worked on the original ATP investigation into the claims. He said, "The evidence that we have gathered for tennis we believe is very strong. There was sort of a group of between 6 and 10 players really who were the main focus of evidence that we'd dug up." But he told the BBC it appears the investigation went nowhere.
28-year-old Serb Novak Djokovic revealed his team was approached in 2007, asking him to deliberately lose a first-round match at the St Petersburg Open in Russia. “I was not approached directly. I was approached through people who were working with me at that time. They were in my team and of course we threw it away right away. It made me feel terrible because I don't want to be linked to this kind of - some people may call it an opportunity - for me it's an act of, in sportsmanship, a crime in sport."
BuzzFeed journalist Heidi Blake who reported this says tennis authorities have to be more transparent. She said, “Well we're hearing from multiple sources and the evidence we're seeing in our files really suggests that this is a problem across the breadth and depth of the game. It's widespread, it's happening at all levels, it is quite deep-rooted, and I think it's going to take a lot for tennis to really crack down on it effectively, and so yes I think there does need to be a full investigation. It needs to be transparent, the results should be published, and I guess tennis really needs to figure out a roadmap to really reform the game."
Seventeen-time grand slam winner Roger Federer regards match-fixing as serious. But the Swiss superstar is unhappy with speculation regarding the issue in tennis. "Who? What? It's like thrown around. It's so easy to do that. I would like to hear the name. I would love to hear names. Then at least it's concrete stuff and you can actually debate about it. Is it now? Was it before? Was it a doubles player, a singles player? Which slam? It's so all over the place. It's nonsense to answer something that is pure speculation."
Twenty-one-time grand slam champion Serena Williams has dismissed any hint of match-fixing in women's tennis. While there's been no suggestion of any such behaviour on her tour, Williams makes it clear that kind of behaviour isn't in her nature. "Not that I'm aware of. When I'm playing, and I can only answer for me, I play very hard and every player I play seems to play hard. As an athlete, I do everything I can to be not only great but historic. If that's going on, I don't know about it.
