The world of tennis has been rocked by allegation of match-fixing at Grand Slam events, including three games at Wimbledon.
An investigation carried out by the BBC and BuzzFeed News claims to have uncovered ‘evidence of widespread suspected match fixing at the top level of world tennis’.
According to the report, 16 players who were ranked in the top 50 over the last decade have been allowed to compete at Grand Slam events despite being ‘repeatedly flagged to the tennis integrity unit over suspicions they have thrown matches’.
Reports suggesting tennis next sport to be rocked by scandal, match fixing to aid gambling. Shocking but not necessarily surprising.
— Matt Cooper (@cooper_m) January 17, 2016
A group of whistle-blowers within the sport apparently passed on documents from an investigation carried out by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) into alleged match-fixing, which found suspicious betting patterns in Russia, Northern Italy and Sicily.
BBC and Buzzfeed News have decided not to name any of the players involved, saying: ‘without access to their phone, bank and computer records it is not possible to determine if they may be been personally taking part in match fixing.’
But Mark Philips, who worked on the ATP’s investigation, said: “There was a core of about 10 players that we believed were the most common perpetrators that were at the root of the problem.”
