Match fixing

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Match fixing

wolf · Tennis legend

http://opencourt.ca/friends-raise-funds-to-cover-roussets-tiu-fine/

At least a goodwill story has come out of it though, with a friend setting up a crowd funding page to pay his fine and loads of players contributing. Shows how ridiculous the whole thing is.

RJA · Hall of fame

wolf wrote:
http://opencourt.ca/friends-raise-funds-to-cover-roussets-tiu-fine/
At least a goodwill story has come out of it though, with a friend setting up a crowd funding page to pay his fine and loads of players contributing. Shows how ridiculous the whole thing is.

Good to see but it doesn't come close to making up for this utter farce. The TIU seem toothless in the face of genuine wrong doing and so are seemingly happy to jump on minor offences like this.

EddietheEagle · County player

It isn't a minor offence. A player is under an absolute obligation to report any approaches, no 'if's or 'but's.

As Optimist writes, the difficulty here is a seeming failure to take mitigating circumstances into account. There may or may not be an understandable reason for this.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, I think most folk's big problem here is the level of punishment, which seems absolutely OTT given the circumstances that the players have described and noone, including the TIU, seems to have suggested that there was anything more to it.

The player could certainly have not accepted the offer of playing in R1, but passing over the R1 cash, but it would have been unreasonable to report the approach to the TIU ( and thus hanging the other player out to dry ) if this is any example of how unreasonable the TIU can be.

wolf · Tennis legend

I'd like to take back my earlier post. I misread Eddie's post which I was replying to.

RJA · Hall of fame

From the reaction of many players the implication here is that this is a pretty regular practice. Seemingly the big mistake was that they transferred the money electronically rather than in cash.

The reason I think this is a minor offence is that the player who is "selling" his place in the main draw is not actually gaining anything. He is getting no more than he would if he took to the court and retired after one game. If he was being offered more than the value of first round prize money it would be more serious. That isn't to say I am completely okay with it as it could easily lead to a situation where no one ever drops out unless the LL was willing to pay up so it is rightly an offence.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

So glad to see that the Italian tennis federation is prepared to make a strong stand, even against players with high visibility.

Kudos to them.

www.foxnews.com/sports/2015/08/07/italian-tennis-players-daniele-bracciali-and-potito-starace-banned-for-life-for/

EddietheEagle · County player

Interesting they've done that seemingly without the involvement of the Tennis Integrity Unit. No press release on the TIU or ATP sites although I'm not surprised about the latter as they tend to steer clear of bad news.

kaseldop · Social player

A report on the BBC Sports Site has a Match fixing scandal report involving several current players. Also how the sports governing body seemed to not want to investigate.

Hope we aren't going to have another problem with a major Sports Organisation.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I think all sports organizations have their problems and this is a difficult one for tennis.

An expensive sport to play with most players outside the top 150 having to go cap in hand in search of money to keep them on the challenger and futures tours. There have been a number of comments on here about the performance of players/a player from a war torn countries where

That can breed an unhealthy pragmatism which in the unscrupulous may permeat higher in the rankings. I can't see the highest level being that vulnerable as the players (that everyone watches) are so well rewarded and why would they? The risks players take to get to that level are a completely different matter.

Time will tell.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

For those that haven't seen it, Andy M posted a link to a much more detailed article here.

www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/the-tennis-racket

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

How about the bookies simply not accept any bets on any match involving players that appear to be linked to unusual betting patterns.

paulisi · Tennis legend

kundalini wrote:
How about the bookies simply not accept any bets on any match involving players that appear to be linked to unusual betting patterns.

You cannot have unusual betting patterns without having some betting on them....

The bookies are quite clever these days and suspend betting on anything suspicious straight away.

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

My reading of the various articles was that the problem involved/involves a fairly small group of repeat offenders. And that the tennis authorities have not done as much as they might have because of the higher standard of proof required to get a conviction (and because they would much rather keep it quiet due to the bad publicity).