[JoshW]

November 25, 2007
Talk of Efforts to Fix Matches Rattles Pro Tennis
By JOE DRAPE
As the venerable Davis Cup finals begin Friday in Oregon, tennis is mired in a widening gambling scandal in which at least a dozen ranked players have said they have been asked to throw matches or have heard of similar approaches to others.

The players have volunteered their stories in the wake of an investigation of Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, the world’s No. 4 player, because of betting patterns during a loss in Poland in the summer. Mr. Davydenko, who has refused to turn over phone records, has since denied any wrongdoing.

The allegations, from journeymen and highly ranked players, have built quietly as individuals on the men’s tour talked to newspapers and broadcast stations on different continents, but together they have massed into the worst crisis to ever hit the sport.

No players spoke to the Association of Tennis Professionals or the International Tennis Federation before going public. So 10 days ago, the ATP, which governs the rules and conducts 63 tournaments on the men’s tour, mandated that players and their entourages notify tennis officials within 48 hours about any information regarding gambling or match fixing.

On Nov. 10, the ATP suspended 124th-ranked Alessio Di Mauro of Italy for nine months and fined him $60,000 for gambling on 120 matches from November 2006 to June 2007 through an online account. Mr. Di Mauro faced a lifetime ban if the investigation had concluded he bet on his own matches or affected the outcome of a match.

Kris Dent, an ATP spokesman, also acknowledged that a “highly subjective” list of 140 suspicious matches dating from 2002 had been compiled by a European bookmaker and provided to investigators.

“There is a clear risk to the sport because players are being approached,” Mr. Dent said. “We take this incredibly seriously.”

Although tennis is perceived as a genteel sport, it has always confronted the same problem as other contests based on individual competition like boxing. A fixer needs to sway only one person, and taking a dive is hard to detect.

“Tennis is a very easy game to manipulate,” said Patrick McEnroe, the captain of the United States Davis Cup team, which will face Mr. Davydenko and his Russian teammates in Portland, Ore. “I can throw a match and you’d never know. A trained eye can figure it out.”

He added, “I don’t think it’s going on at the top level, but it wouldn’t shock me that it might happen on the lower levels.” Among the players who have acknowledged publicly that they were approached, or are aware of other players who were approached by gamblers, are Mr. Davydenko’s Davis Cup teammate, 34th-ranked Dmitry Tursunov, and the American Bob Bryan, who with his twin, Mike, forms the top-ranked doubles team.

Tursunov said he Bob Bryan told The Los Angeles Times in the summer that he knew of players who had been offered money to fix matches.

Gilles Elseneer of Belgium, whose highest ranking was No. 97 in 2004, told Belgian television that he refused an offer of about $140,000 to lose a first-round match at Wimbledon in 2005.

Two Czech players, Tomas Berdych and Jan Hernych, were the most forthcoming publicly and said they knew of attempted match fixing in Russia. Mr. Berdych, who is ranked No. 14, told reporters at the United States Open that he had heard of several players who were approached at events in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Mr. Hernych, ranked No. 156, told a Czech newspaper that an anonymous caller to his hotel room in Moscow had asked if he would be willing to “sell his game.”

Mr. McEnroe said: “I’m hoping that right now it is more of a threat than a problem. If this stuff is true, the repercussions will be loud and clear.”

At the center of the investigation is Betfair, one of the largest so-called online sports exchanges, which matches bettors directly against each other, rather than against the house, as traditional bookmakers do. Betfair set off the current crisis when it voided $7 million in bets after Mr. Davydenko withdrew from a match against 74th-ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina at the Prokom Open in August in Sopot, Poland.

Mr. Davydenko retired because of an injury with Mr. Vassallo Arguello ahead, 2-6, 6-3, 2-1. During the match, Betfair notified the ATP that its security team had recognized irregular betting patterns.

The growth of Internet gambling globally has had a powerful impact on sports wagering. In 2005, for example, $12 billion was bet online, according to Christiansen Capital Advisors, a research firm based in Maine. In Europe, Asia and Australia, the sports exchanges have found a thriving market in tennis.

At Betfair, which is based in London, tennis ranks third behind horse racing and soccer among its one million customers, who together place five million bets each day. More than $60 million was handled for the Wimbledon’s men’s final, won by Roger Federer over Rafael Nadal.

Robin Marks, a Betfair spokesman, said the decision to void the bets from the match in Poland — the first time the company had ever done so — was an easy one. A large amount of money was coming in for the obscure match, Mr. Marks said, and the betting patterns made little sense: Mr. Davydenko went from an odds-on favorite to a significant underdog before the match started, and his odds drifted higher and more money came in for Mr. Vassallo Arguello even after Mr. Davydenko won the first set.

By the next morning, Betfair’s 40-person security team had unearthed additional information by combing its records and tracing unique Internet addresses. Betfair passed on that information in accordance with the ATP’s anti-corruption program, which was put in place in 2003 in the wake of a match-fixing scandal in cricket. Mr. Marks said Betfair has similar agreements with 28 other sports leagues on which it takes bets.

He declined to specify what Betfair had found.

“Why would the betting patterns change before a ball was even hit?” Mr. Marks said. “Why would more money come in against him when he had already won the first set? You come to the assumption that somebody knew something.”

Mr. Davydenko has said that he entered the tournament playing poorly and had an injured foot, for which he was receiving treatment. His manager, Ronnie Leitgeb, said in a telephone interview last week that ATP investigators had told Mr. Davydenko’s camp that nine Betfair accounts traced to Russia stood to make $1.5 million if he lost, and two other unknown account holders nearly $6 million.

Mr. Leitgeb said Mr. Davydenko had cooperated with investigators, and had allowed them to interview his wife and brother. But he said Mr. Davydenko had refused to release his phone records as required by the ATP anti-corruption code.

Mr. Davydenko’s lawyer, Frank Immenga, who is based in Germany, said the request for the phone records was made at the United States Open and included all phones owned or used by Mr. Davydenko. He advised Mr. Davydenko to challenge the request because it could include his personal phones as well as those of his relatives and friends.

“He may not be forced to provide data that belongs to third parties,” Mr. Immenga wrote in an e-mail message. “We were in appeal proceedings before the ATP’s hearing officer in Switzerland.”

Mr. Leitgeb, who has been around tennis for 30 years and managed the former French Open champion Thomas Muster, said Mr. Davydenko had nothing to hide.

“Nikolay was treated for a sore foot before the match and during the match,” Mr. Leitgeb said, referring to the loss to Mr. Vassallo Arguello.

“Some gamblers could have figured he was hurt and called somebody,” Mr. Leitgeb added.

The ATP investigative team includes former Scotland Yard detectives and members of the British Horse Racing Authority, which has dealt with gambling scandals. In addition, ATP officials sat down with their counterparts in the I.T.F., the Women’s Tennis Association and the four Grand Slam tournaments to discuss a joint tennis integrity unit and agree on anti-corruption rules, sanctions and procedures and ensure consistency at every tournament. They will soon appoint an independent panel to analyze the risk and threat to tennis around the world.

“Honesty and integrity are critical in our sport,” Etienne de Villiers, the ATP’s executive chairman and president, said in a statement.

He added, “We believe that further public comment at this time would be inappropriate and could potentially undermine the integrity of the process.”

But players are talking. Andy Murray of Britain, who is ranked 11th, recently told BBC Radio that although it is difficult to prove who has “tanked” a match, “everyone knows it goes on.”

No one has admitted accepting any offers, but other players who have been quoted about being approached include 52nd-ranked Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia; No. 54 Arnaud Clément and No. 92 Michael Llodra of France; and No. 153 Paul Goldstein of the United States. Tim Henman of Britain, who was ranked No. 4 in 2002, said he had heard that other players were asked to influence the outcome of matches.

No player has publicly identified would-be bribers. This clearly frustrates ATP officials, who have interviewed, or intend to interview, those players. The ATP has also warned players who have not spoken publicly but may know of match fixing to come forward by the end of the year. In the future, the ATP has promised stiff penalties for players who withhold information.

“We need to get timely information so we can act on it,” said Mr. Dent, the ATP spokesman. “We shouldn’t be surprised they were approached. We live in a time that you can bet on anything.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/sp...gewanted=print

[jon13009]

Tennis is easy to fix since there are only 2 players involved. Problem with tennis is that you cannot just default because in my book that is a push. To allow your "sponsor" to win his bet, you have to finish the match and lose convincingly.

Sometimes players appear to be tanking, but just have lost their edge mentally. It is hard to say if a match is being tanked, thrown, or just lost outright. The Bartoli-Hennin match at Wimbledon is a small example of many out there.

It is unlikely the top players who have major sponsors are going to be tempted. If the ATP and ITF wants to try and stop match fixing, they are going to have to either put the fixers in jail (more likely) or stop gambling on tennis altogether (which is impossible.)

Tennis matched have been fixed or tanked since gambling on the sport started, and unless the match has some significance to any player, the possibilities of fixing will always be there.

With the US winning the Davis cup, and the Australian Open a month and 1/2 away, no tennis matches to bet on anyway.