Tennis: Top players involved in match-fixing?

The BBC and BuzzFeed News claimed that they have seen secret files exposing evidence of widespread suspected match fixing at the top level of world tennis

All the sixteen players, who were allegedly involved in the match fixing scam, were in top 50 rankings.

"The cache of documents passed to the BBC and Buzzfeed News include the findings of an investigation set up in 2007 by the organising body, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)," BBC reported.

"The documents we have obtained show the enquiry found betting syndicates in Russia, northern Italy and Sicily making hundreds of thousands of pounds betting on games investigators thought to be fixed. Three of these games were at Wimbledon," it said.

"In a confidential report for the tennis authorities in 2008, the enquiry team said 28 players involved in these games should be investigated but the findings were never followed up. Tennis introduced a new anti-corruption code in 2009 but after taking legal advice were told previous corruption offences could not be pursued," the report said.

"As a result no new investigations into any of the players who were mentioned in the 2008 report were opened," a TIU spokesman told BBC.

The report claimed that alerts were sent to TIU on the players.

However, none of them were disciplined by the TIU.

"Eight of the players repeatedly flagged to the TIU over the past decade are due to play in the Australian Open," BBC reported.

The first major Grand Slam of the year will start from Monday.

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