Oct 11, 2007 Gambling in tennis? By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY OCT. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
When the too numerous governing bodies of tennis all agree before they sit down for a meeting, you know the issue is either trivial or very serious.
No guesswork is required to figure out which applies to the issue of match-fixing.
Tennis has long made a habit of finding fault with itself, searching for doom clouds amid the bright blue of the Grand Slam events and Roger Federer's talent. But in this case, its scouts did not scan the horizon diligently enough.
True, the men's tour and its former leader, Mark Miles, put in place an anti-corruption program in 2003 after the perils of Internet gambling began coming into focus. True, the women's tour already has comprehensive rules and sanctions.
But having good laws is not the same thing as having good enforcement, and it is only now, amid allegations and at least two investigations, that the sport seems ready to tackle the issue collectively and wholeheartedly with full-time manpower and week-in, tournament-out emphasis.
On Friday in Roehampton, England, representatives from the women's tour, men's tour, International Tennis Federation and Grand Slams will gather at ITF headquarters to begin the process of creating and sharing the cost for what they have dubbed the 'integrity unit.'
Continue reading the main storyExperts who have worked on anti-corruption in horse racing and cricket are scheduled to speak to the tennis officials, whose intent is to improve intelligence gathering and player education as well as tighten the oversight of accreditation at tournaments.
It would have been better if the integrity unit had been a proactive move instead of a reactive one, hurried along by the suspect match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martín Vassallo Argüello in a minor tournament in Poland in August. That match attracted more than $7 million in wagers on the online betting exchange Betfair, a preposterously high amount for an early-round match in an obscure setting. Much of the betting backed the heavily favored Davydenko to lose, even after he had won the first set. The Russian eventually retired from the match, citing a foot injury, and Betfair took the unusual step of voiding all the bets after notifying the ATP, which has begun an investigation.
Since then, several players have come forward to claim that they have declined offers to throw matches. Among them: Dmitry Tursunov of Russia, Paul Goldstein of the United States and Gilles Elseneer, a Belgian, who said he was approached to lose at Wimbledon in 2005. The rub is that none of those players approached the ATP or ITF with that information before going public, and as of yet, no player has publicly identified his would-be bribers.
'In a perverse sort of way, I'm quite grateful for what's happened, because it's allowed everyone in the sport to think about what they should do more of and better,' said Etienne de Villiers, head of the men's tour, in an interview by telephone. 'We've been talking for more than a year about the integrity unit. And now everybody is ready to say: 'Let's do it. Let's not worry about who's paying for what and who runs it and who gets credit.' '
But in a globalized sports world, where threats and bribes can come from even more places than players, making the unit effective is a bona fide, surely expensive challenge.
'At the end of this fully committed review, we will get about 7,000 recommendations and try to play it right, and we will I'm sure, because this is terribly threatening,' said Bill Babcock, the ITF's executive director. 'It's a threat not because the players are involved, because that is not clear, but because it becomes an association with our sport.
'We're not here to stop betting. We don't have that authority and couldn't, but we are here to make sure there is no match-fixing. That's the focus. Betting on tennis is going to happen, but we have to make sure the next step isn't taken: corrupting our athletes. We need to put up a giant wall of tools and rules and experts.'
Newsletter Sign Up
Continue reading the main storyThank you for subscribing.
An error has occurred. Please try again later.
You are already subscribed to this email.
- Opt out or contact us anytime
A fire wall might be more useful, considering the explosion in Internet gambling traffic, which has opened up even the most minor tour matches to a global clientele. This is, of course, hardly a tennis-specific issue. Consider the trial of the star Irish jockey Kieren Fallon that is now under way, in which he is among those charged with rigging horse races and defrauding Betfair.
New York Tennis
But at least a jockey has to find a way to make his mount slow down to lose a race intentionally. Tennis singles players would need to rely on no one but themselves to throw a match, and what makes the sport more vulnerable is that much of the tennis played throughout the year is of limited import. A men's player in a minor event can lose early and theoretically suffer no negative impact to his ranking, because only his top 18 tournament results each year are counted. The upside is that companies like Betfair have a stake in pouncing on any highly unusual trends and passing the information along to sports administrators.
Still, ask tennis administrators what scares them more, doping or gambling, and they will answer gambling.
'With doping, you know who you have to test and know you can test them,' De Villiers said. 'It's just down to science. If you can stay ahead of the guys cheating, which is a tough thing to do, you have a far better chance of getting to the root of the problem. The problem here is you don't know who is doing what to whom. You could be talking about a coach or a friend of a coach.'
One concept that De Villiers intends to borrow from golf is that players are responsible for policing their game and their peers. A proposed ATP rule that looks likely to be approved would sanction players who do not disclose relevant information about potential corruption to the tour within 48 hours of becoming aware of it.
New York Post
'It's a change of culture,' said De Villiers, who maintains his belief that match fixing is not yet a problem in tennis. 'We can't possibly stop athletes from being approached. We can't possibly have all of our 700 or 800 athletes with bodyguards, but what we can do is educate them on their responsibilities when they are approached and what the consequences of not behaving appropriately are.'
New York Times Newspaper Today
Cultural change has not been restricted to the players. The Australian Open recently announced that it will eliminate an on-site betting operation at Melbourne Park for the 2008 tournament. As recently as last year, the ATP brain trust seriously considered accepting an Internet betting company as an official tour sponsor before thinking better of it.
Clearly, much less debate would be required now, but there are still individual men's and women's tour events with gambling sites for sponsors.
Washington Post
Larry Scott, head of the WTA Tour, said he has argued against such arrangements and lost. 'Americans tend to be very puritanical on this issue,' he said. 'But it's an accepted practice for most countries in Europe. Our tournament directors in Europe tell me, 'When the betting companies stop being shirt sponsors in soccer then come and talk to us.' '
Hopefully the day will come soon when Real Madrid and other top clubs change their short-sighted approach. With danger in the air and on the net, tennis needs to be more careful than ever about what messages it sends to those outside and, above all, inside the game.