ATP seeks to combat gambling with new rule requiring players to report info in 48 hours
By PAUL ALEXANDER
Associated Press Sports
SHANGHAI, China (AP) -Tennis players must notify officials within 48 hours if they hear any information about gambling or match-fixing under a new ATP rule.
The measure was approved during a three-day ATP board meeting during this week's season-ending Masters Cup.
"To us, nothing is more important than the integrity and honesty of the sport,'' ATP president Etienne de Villiers told The Associated Press on Friday. "We'll do everything we can to ensure that the fans and the media and everyone else who cares about tennis know that when there is an upset ... it's because of the athletes and not anything else.''
Players are being given until the end of 2007 to report any previous gambling-related contacts over the last five years. Penalties for not doing so have not been determined but will probably be similar to the maximum three-year suspension and $100,000 fine for players betting on the sport.
Under a zero-tolerance policy, Italian player Alessio Di Mauro last week was handed a nine-month suspension and fined $60,000 for betting on matches online.
Di Mauro has said he will appeal, calling the punishment too severe because he did not attempt to affect any results and did not wager on his own matches.
The ATP also has chosen a new anti-corruption chief, said de Villiers, who did not identify who will fill the role. That person will help draft a common anti-corruption rule in the coming months.
With tennis largely an individual sport, concerns about match-fixing have risen with the increase in Internet gambling.
"Where's there's money, there's temptation,'' de Villiers said. "Where there's temptation, there's greed. Where there's greed, there's crime.''
The specter of gambling came into focus in early August when an online betting company suspended more than $7 million in wagers on a match between fourth-ranked Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello. De Villiers has been careful to emphasize that an investigation is focused on unusual betting patterns during the match at the Poland Open - during which Davydenko retired while trailing in the third set - and not specifically on either player.
"We need to understand what happened,'' de Villiers said, urging patience while the investigation continues. "We're comfortable we're doing the right thing here. Governing bodies have to protect their sport.''
But he also said it was possible that investigators may never be able to figure out exactly what happened.
De Villiers insisted that the game is in good shape, with attendance and TV viewership rising and sponsors pumping another $1 billion into the sport starting in 2008.
The 2009 schedule was finalized at the board meeting. The ATP will drop its Masters Series title and logo, instead calling the elite events "1,000'' tournaments for the number of ranking points the champion earns. Those eight events will be in Indian Wells, California; Miami; Rome; Madrid, Spain; Cincinnati; Toronto/Montreal; Shanghai, China; and Paris.
The Monte Carlo tournament also will be considered a "1,000'' event, but unlike the other eight will not be mandatory. Another 10 tournaments will be "500'' events with the prize money doubling to $20 million.
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ATP seeks to combat gambling with new rule
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