Cilic & Pennetta.

List of my least favourite players

Philipp Kohlschreiber, Potito Starace, Andreas Seppi, Fabio Fognini, Janko Tipsarevic, Michael Llodra, Nikolay Davydenko, Teymuraz Gabashvili, Victor Crivoi, Christophe Rochus, Oscar Hernandez, Yevgeny Korolev, Filippo Volandri, Wayne Odesnik, Victoria Azarenka, Agnieszka Radwanska, Francesca Schiavone, Sara Errani, Maria Kirilenko, Kateryna Bondarenko

Also don't like these much either

Brian Dabul, Eduardo Scwhank, Jeremy Chardy, Simone Bolelli, Lukasz Kubot, Carlos Berlocq, Igor Kunitsyn, Andrey Golubev, Alex Bogomolov, Somdev Devvarman, Steve Darcis, Marin Cilic, Flavio Cipolla, Ivo Karlovic, Viktor Troicki, Flavia Pennetta, Roberta Vinci, Virginie Razzano, Romina Oprandi, Dominika Cibulkova, Eleni Daniilidou

50 suspicious Games in 2015

Is probably counting challengers and qualifiers. So that number sounds high, but I wonder if any of them were in a regular tour match.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/35356550

A South American tennis player has told the BBC that match-fixing is commonplace and even some elite players are "a little bit dirty in some way".

He also claimed fixing is not just limited to lower-ranked professionals and is "a secret that everybody knows".

The player, who requested anonymity, said tennis authorities "know who is doing it" but are unwilling to stop it.

The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) said it rejects "any suggestion that evidence of match-fixing has been suppressed".

"We invite the player behind the allegations to make contact with the TIU and to share the information he claims to have," the TIU added in a statement.

The allegations come after a BBC and BuzzFeed News investigation revealed suspected illegal betting in tennis over the past decade.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC's World Have Your Say team, the player detailed how matches are allegedly fixed and the lengths criminals go to in order to remain undetected.

"This is like a secret on the tour that everybody knows, but we don't talk about it," he said. "We just see it and keep working."

"You know who is doing it, and who is not," he continued. "As a player I know who is missing on purpose or returning a shot in the middle on purpose; who is trying, and who is not. So we work on this - we know."

He also claimed players exchange knowing smiles and make comments that indicate they have fixed a match.

"I started to believe [top players were involved] a few years ago, when a guy told me the result of the next two tournaments - he told me exactly who was going to win and how it was going to happen," he said.

"In the beginning I thought he was just bragging about it to make me fall for his game. But then I was laughing that every match was happening the way he had been telling me it was going to happen - and I'm talking about a Masters series, where there are just big names there."

So you were told who was going to win?

Not just that, added the player, but "exactly" how they would win.

"When I was watching it myself," he said, "I couldn't believe it. It's not easy knowing that you have to lose. You start hitting it and, trust me, everything goes in… it can make you panic.

"So, when I see the guy winning so easily and then he's missing absolutely on purpose, every ball, and the other guy wins... I just couldn't believe it."

"We could co-operate with tennis integrity if we wanted to, but they don't want it to be stopped," he said.

He claimed fewer players would be tempted to fix if they were getting paid more, insisting a player ranked 400 in the world cannot make a living out of tennis.

"They [the authorities] know exactly who is doing it and, if they wanted to stop it, they could stop it today. It's super-easy. They just don't want to do it."

In response, the TIU said it has a "zero-tolerance approach which is enforced with the full powers of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program that includes lifetime bans and punitive financial penalties".

It added: "The TIU works closely with players to prevent corruption through education programmes and confidential reporting systems.

"The great majority of the 21,000 active professional players are good people of high integrity who abhor the suggestion that the sport they love is tainted with allegations of corruption."

perhaps someone told him Djokovic was going to win

That story from the SA tennis player sounds like an ATP stitch up to me. So unbelievable that the punters may think that fixing really is not going on. A Masters event, and knowing who and how is going to win it? Really... like most of the field in on the act... sounds far fetched to me.

agree suspicious betting patterns alone is incredibly dangerous to act on. You could get someone with a few hundred k and a grudge trying to stitch up a player. We've already seen how someone with say 300k can completely manipulate a market and make it look like a fix when it was anything but. Thinking of that match was it Sela v Arguello a couple of years back when someone manipulated the market to change the favourite's odds from 1/3 to 3/1 ish a few hours before the match and then all the way back again just before it started! Everyone thought that was a certain fix but the odds moved normally in-play, which is the tell-tale sign. There can be a number of reasons for large price fluctuations pre-match (injury, illness etc) but there is only one reason for odds not moving normally in-play imo, that is always the giveaway, always a fix.

But what is most disturbing is that there was heavy mafia involvement. These guys are the most organised of organised criminals anywhere in the world and I find it highly doubtful that when the suspicions were raised about all those players back in 2009 that the mafia types stopped completely. That opened the authorities' eyes to betting for the first time and how it could be a major problem. They didn't have a clue before that and the way the fixes were conducted so obviously would support that. But we've seen that these mafia accounts were backing ridiculously low odds and prob not making a great return percentage-wise on their money. Any half decent tennis trader could advise these gangs that 'you are doing it in a very stupid and obvious way and there are much better ways to do it in a far more profitable and undetectible way, like 40-0 up serving for the match in a close match and going to deuce. And i've seen a few quotes where insiders have said that once you agree to fix they have a hold over you for life, you are getting into bed with career criminals with nothing to lose who will do jail-time in their sleep and you have everything to lose, they have dirt on you and can expose you at any time. That's why I doubt that they stopped completely. I find it more likely they moved with the times and came up with smarter ways to do it and keep their player 'assets' doing what they wanted. A player is not going to say 'they're onto me now so I have to stop', if they don't want that and the player has family etc back home who could be targeted. The player will be told, 'no, you will do it this way from now on'. The notion that they can own a player's entire career is the most worrying thing for me and not on an integrity level either.

Re Haase, I don't think those players were banned but one hasn't played in a while. Certainly nothing official from TIU about it but it wouldn't surprise me either the way they covered up Cilic positive for months before making an announcement. Maybe the players know different.

This claims to be the BBC/Buzzfeed names:

http://showlegend.tumblr.com/post/137644525409/the-buzzfeed-15-exposed

Igor Andreev (RUS), Lukas Lacko (SVK), Ivan Dodig (CRO), Andrey Golubev (KAZ), Juan Ignacio Chela (ARG), Lleyton Hewitt (AUS), Jan Hajek (CZE), Albert Montanes (ESP), Daniel Gimeno-Traver (ESP), Janko Tipsarevic (SRB), Alex Bogomolov Jr (RUS), Matthew Ebden (AUS), Denis Istomin (UZB), Teymuraz Gabashvili (RUS) and Michael Russell (USA).

agree suspicious betting patterns alone is incredibly dangerous to act on. You could get someone with a few hundred k and a grudge trying to stitch up a player. We've already seen how someone with say 300k can completely manipulate a market and make it look like a fix when it was anything but. Thinking of that match was it Sela v Arguello a couple of years back when someone manipulated the market to change the favourite's odds from 1/3 to 3/1 ish a few hours before the match and then all the way back again just before it started! Everyone thought that was a certain fix but the odds moved normally in-play, which is the tell-tale sign. There can be a number of reasons for large price fluctuations pre-match (injury, illness etc) but there is only one reason for odds not moving normally in-play imo, that is always the giveaway, always a fix.


There were a couple of French Ligue 2 matches a couple of seasons ago where the HT/FT market had some very suspicious activity on one outcome with huge sums really moving the market. One or two landed, but many didn't. Again, is it a sign of a fix, a fix gone wrong, or just manipulation. Either way, it just demonstrates you can't go on the market itself to prove suspicious matchfixing activity.

fair enough Darlo, but when you see these sites relying on SPs only to eg accuse Verdasco they show a fundamental misunderstanding of what they are talking about imo. The in-play activity is much more of an indicator but they don't produce it. The Buzzfeed report does the same in places. If any of them even spoke to a tennis trader like one of us we would all tell them that's what they should be looking at primarily, so it seems they haven't even done that.

If it is mafia run then I wouldn't be surprised if that's a major reason the TIU don't want to get involved. You need Interpol or the FBI for that due to the international element and who you are dealing with. In Russia the mob goes right up to government level, they are above the law. They are dangerous and normal people simply can't stand up to them. So even vilifying the players involved is not the way to cut it out. They threatened a Betfair employee in Russia and I've no doubt they would do the same with players and their families. Media will probably spin it as a dirty Russian/Italian players issue but it isn't really. I wouldn't put myself or my family at risk, there are more important things in life than tennis integrity when you get to that level.

Was watching a Russian Mafia doc there and Davydenko is in the car talking to the main man! Another mob guy from the same doc's wiki page says

He is notably close to professional Russian tennis players. For instance, a 2002 article in the Belgium daily La Libre Belgique [2] reported on interviews of Russian players following Tokhtakhounov's arrest in Italy. Yevgeny Kafelnikov defended his "friend", Marat Safin refused to discuss a topic that was "not his problem" while Anna Kournikova commented "I have heard of this man. But I don't think I should talk about it. I am Russian and I will have to go back there". Pressed to say whether Tokhtakhounov could be called a mobster, she answered, "One might say that."

the interesting question is do the ATP and ITF leave themselves protected from litigation if they suspend a player from the tour without giving a reason. it's their club, and one imagines it's entirely within their rights to not invite players onto the tour for whatever reason they choose.

presumably announcing that you have suspended someone because of match fixing concerns leaves you open to slander and libel claims where the legal onus is on the alleged slanderer to back up their claims.

I wonder why it wouldn't be announced given Westerhof is a nobody though

can't see how they'd 'deal with' only one of them and not the other given how the match panned out and how close they were?

Westerhof tore his ACL and MCL while playing 2. Bundesliga on July 26th, so no, his absence is not due to a silent ban.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/sport/tennis-klare-worte-1.2584491

boy oh boy

why do they have the tennis integrity unit in england when the english know absolutely nothing about tennis?

fixx0rz crawling out from their holes:
https://latestnewsresource.com/en/news/chilijskij-tennisist-anonimno
-priznalsja-v-uchastii-v-dogovornyh-matchah