Under scanner: Davydenko

A document detailing bookmakers’ suspicions over tennis matches has indicated that certain players have featured in a number of contests with irregular betting patterns. “Yes, there are some names which keep coming up,” said one key figure in the betting industry who has seen the list of scrutinised matches.

The document, which has been circulating in the tennis world and has been seen by the ATP, also includes suspicions over the various ways that a player could possibly corrupt the fair and honest outcome of a match.

Andy Murray alleged this week that some players have been taking bribes to throw matches, and yet a professional simply setting out to finish the contest as the loser is just one possible form of corruption.

For example, the document suggests that ‘win or retire’ is a suspected form of corrupt practice. The suspicion is that a player’s backers put money on him to win, but they do so at bookmakers who only pay out when a match has been completed, or once two full sets have been played.

The player walks on court with the intention to win, but if he drops the first set and believes that he has little chance of victory, he quits during the second set.

This means that his backers get their stake back, and there has been absolutely no risk of them losing their money.

In another example, the document also alleges that certain players may deliberately lose the opening set in order “to lengthen the mid-match odds”, but then give maximum effort.

However, just because there were irregular betting patterns on a match, that does not mean the contest was fixed. It is possible that those placing the bets have inside information on an injury the player may be carrying, or, say, whether he has just had an argument with his girlfriend and is not completely focusing on the match.

This is certainly not the only list of suspicious tennis matches which has been drawn up by bookmakers. It is understood that a number of bookmakers have produced their own dossiers, and have even shared information.

The recent talk about the threat of a gambling scandal in tennis began when Betfair, a leading peer-to-peer betting exchange, voided more than £3m which had been wagered on the outcome of Nikolay Davydenko’s match against Argentina’s Martin Vassallo Arguello in Poland in August, after picking up on irregular betting patterns.

Davydenko, a Russian ranked fourth in the world, retired from the match in the third set after citing an injury, and is being investigated by the ATP.

The Daily Telegraph