Tennis seeks anti-corruption help
There have been a number of stories concerning corruption and match-fixing in tennis in recent weeks, although no cases have yet been confirmed.”We need to talk to people who’ve been in this world for a while and have a lot to share with us,” ITF committee member Bill Babcock told BBC Sport.”Do I think tennis is unclean? No, but we have a chance to stay ahead of it.”
ITF’s Bill Babcock Former British number one Tim Henman recently told BBC Sport that match-fixing “seems to go on” although he had no experience of it himself. And Belgian player Gilles Elseneer has since said that he turned down an offer to throw a match at Wimbledon in 2005.Online betting exchange Betfair also raised concerns of irregular gambling patterns surrounding Nikolay Davydenko’s match against Martin Vassallo Arguello when the Russian withdrew injured during the match. Although Babcock said no links had been established between specific players and corruption, he wanted to kill it off before there was any chance for it to take root in the sport.”Betting has never been connected to a player but the fact is as corruption grows, temptation grows with it,” he said.”We’re very concerned about any incident, be it syndicates pushing their way forward or people on site providing those temptations.”We’re trying to get each of the governing bodies together to unify the rules to some degree so we can all share our views on the scope of any potential rule.”