Tennis executives work to stop threat of fixed matches

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Tennis executives work to stop threat of fixed matches

By Charles Bricker | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
December 10, 2007

The 2008 tennis season is still a month away, but you can get 7-1 odds right now that No. 1 Roger Federer won't win at least one major and 50-1 odds that Justine Henin, who leads the women's rankings, will win all four Grand Slams.

But while tens of thousands are weighing their wagers in this most global of sports, the executives who run the game are cringing after a year in which the threat of fixed matches seems to have brought tennis closer than ever to the scandals that recently rocked soccer and the NBA.

No one has yet been shown to have corrupted the game. But tennis isn't waiting for a proven fix to happen.

The leaders of the men's tour (ATP), women's tour (WTA) and the Gland Slams (ITF) are known for going their own ways. Nothing, however, has brought them together like the prospect of a thrown match.

They have formed a joint committee, which has met in recent weeks in London and Shanghai and is close to employing the most savvy, streetwise international expert on gambling and gambling fixes it can find.

By the start of the new season, lifetime bans will await any playerproven to have collaborated with gamblers.

"We take this ridiculously importantly and seriously. That's the first thing you have to understand," said Etienne de Villiers, president and chairman of the men's tour. "And trust me, if we find anyone, be it a player, entourage, anyone — they will have the maximum ban imposed. There's going to be zero tolerance here."

But while the rhetoric is strong and the penalties severe, if a player chooses to deliberately lose a match for money, it won't be easy to prove.

"The good news is we don't think there's an issue right now. Certainly not in women's tennis," WTA CEO Larry Scott said. "But there are risks, for sure, because of the one-on-one nature of the sport and, frankly, the sheer volume of gambling on tennis."

In team sports, the circle of information about a fix is wide, and if a referee or umpire conspires to fix a game, he has superiors overseeing his work.

Tennis professionals, however, are on their own and are so accomplished that, if they choose to do so, can miss a shot by inches at a critical stage. How can it be proven that it was a deliberate miss?

What tennis must do is rely on inside tips gathered by the new gambling czar and by diligent observation of betting patterns.

In August, at an inconsequential tournament in Sopot, Poland, there was an extraordinary amount of money bet on No. 89-ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina, who was playing No. 4-ranked Nikolay Davydenko in a match that held virtually no interest for anyone other than the players…and bettors.

As the match progressed and the money on the Argentine increased, even after Davydenko won the first set 6-2, the British gambling house Betfair shut down all wagering because things looked suspicious. Davydenko retired in the third set with an injured foot, and the ATP launched an investigation, which has thus far turned up nothing.

A few weeks ago, at St. Petersburg, Russia, Davydenko was cautioned by a chair umpire for "not giving a full effort," and he was fined $2,000 by the tournament supervisor. But ATP vice president Gayle Bradshaw rescinded the fine, saying there was no video evidence Davydenko was shirking.

The controversial Russian has strongly denied any involvement in a gambling scheme, and he could make an easy case for his innocence.

First, there was no secret he went into the Sopot match with the injury. Second, he's won $2,051,775 this year and $7,263,256 for his career. Did he really need to throw a match?

Both tours have driven home the point to players in mandatory meetings that anyone who fixes a match not only stains the game but threatens the livelihood of players, coaches and sponsors.

Since the Davydenko episode, a few players have revealed they've had oblique conversations that seemed to suggest someone was fishing for a fix, but no one has said he was directly offered a bribe.

"We've had a couple of women come forward about contacts and they wanted us to know," Scott said. "This is exactly the kind of information that will be passed on to the outside expert we hire."

But Scott isn't sure about players becoming ad hoc enforcement officers by arranging meetings with contacts in order to get names of people who want them to throw a match.

"We have to protect the players' security," Scott said. "We realize in this world of gambling, we could be dealing with some dangerous characters. Our focus will very much be on the rules and deterring the players and the people around the players — coaches, friends.

"But, at various stages, we're going to have to turn information over to the authorities. We just have to figure out what is the sport's role and how far can we go, how far do we go."

De Villiers went so far as to call in Michael Franzese to speak at a players' meeting. "He took 45 minutes as a former mob guy telling these players how serious it was if you enter into this nefarious world of gambling," de Villiers said. "It doesn't stop. It never lets go of you. It drags you further and further into it."

Three weeks ago, the ATP announced it was fining obscure Italian player Alessio di Mauro $60,000 and suspending him nine months for betting on tennis over a seven-month period beginning in November 2006. It found no evidence that di Mauro collaborated with gamblers to fix matches or that he bet on his own matches.

No doubt some ATP officials would have liked a lifetime ban as the strongest possible warning to other players, but they had to abide by their own rules.

"We are way ahead of most governing bodies in terms of this issue," de Villiers said at the U.S. Open in September. "We saw this coming. We're not going to be ostriches, either. We're never going to be complacent."

It's true. They are determined to head off any fix at the pass.

What hasn't been demonstrated, however, is that there really is anything they can do to stop a fix from happening.