Tennis match-fixing to be investigated

Settle down, it's nothing from Melbourne but the bent-as-a-three-bob-note ATP match from St Petersburg in October between Filippo Volandri and Teymuraz Gabashvili. The Evening Standard reports that the Tennis Integrity Unit is investigating the circumstances around this match.

I posted twice on this match originally, here and then a day later here.

Volandri will almost certainly retire this year anyway, so I suspect any penalty will be meaningless anyway.Posted byScott Fergusonat18:50

ATP Tennis – Novak Djokovic defeats Thomas Berdych at ATP World Tour Finals

by Stephen Lars on Nov.23, 2010, under Sports News, Tennis

Novak Djokovic had a sore spot ever since he fell to Czech Thomas Berdych during the Wimbledon semifinals in July. But it is now payback time, as the talented Djokovic brought in his A-game to the 02 Arena in London in his first match at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals round-robin stage to defeat Berdych in a 6-3, 6-3 matchup.

Djokovic knows his way around this tournament. He had a great tournament during the 2008 season when we went all the way to capture the season finale at Shanghai. In the 2008 final Djokovic went face to face with Nikolay Davydenko and won 6-1, 7-5. The following year, when the tournament made its move from Shanghai to London, Davydenko was able to step up and win the tournament playing the final against Argentine Juan Martín del Potro by 6-3, 6-4.

The ATP World Tour Final is certainly a very different tournament. Contrary to most any other professional ATP sanctioned tournament, the World Tour is not played based on a single elimination knockout stage. The World Tour Finals only calls in the 8 best ranked players at the end of the year.

These eight players are then divided into four players groups. Players in group A and Group B take on a round-robin first stage where they play 3 matches against the other contenders in their group. The two best record holders in each group then make it to the next phase of the Barclays World Tour and into the semifinals. The Winners are awarded up to 1500 ranking points and there is over a 4.5$ million purse.

Djokovic has been very successful this year over hard court surfaces in the ATP circuit. This is his 40th win in hard courts. He has only fallen 10 times in the fast paced hard courts this season. And that surely was evident in the court. Djokovic clearly dominated the 25-year-old Czech throughout the whole match. Berdych committed 19 unforced errors, and from early in the first set, it was evident that he was in trouble. Berdych suffered two double faults in the opening game. From there on there was very little hope for Berdych.

Djokovic arrives to the 02 arena as the No. 3 seed in the tournament. He is really experiencing one heck of a season. He has won 26 of his last 33 games and it really seems as if he might just be able to keep on crunching his opponents.

If you are looking for some wagering on Tennis action, then you probably don’t want to miss on the action on November 23rd. Roger Federer will play Andy Murray while  Robin Soderling will take on David Ferrer. As of press time, Federer is a favorite to win at ML-130 with a comeback of ML

more dodgy tennis

The ATP have been getting slack on fixed matches this year so it's only fitting that after last week's Janko Tipsarevic fix, we've got another one going on right now in St Petersburg, in front of a huge crowd of about 20 spectators.

Filippo Volandri is obviously supposed to lose and is doing his level best to make sure that happens. He won the first set, yet Gabashvili's price to win the match shortened. Gabashvili then goes down a break in the 2nd set, takes an injury timeout for treatment on his right knee which is now strapped heavily. Volandri makes sure he can't go further ahead by throwing in two timely double-faults to lose his serve. Gabashvili wins the second set, then Volandri hands him a very soft break in the opening game of the third.

At 2-1 in the third set, the Italian conveniently calls out the trainer for treatment on his right arm and pops a pill to make it look like there are reasons for his pathetic tanking. He is now doing everything he can to lose this, deliberate errors, double faults etc... Over £2.3m has now been traded on Betfair on this awful, awful match.

The ATP and their integrity unit will have received warnings about this match while it has been in progress. They'll take a look at it and find some convenient reasons why they can't take any action against the players. Playing in a country (Ukraine) that probably doesn't have sporting fraud and corruption listed as a crime will be one of those reasons. And both players were injured, blah, blah, blah.... Nothing will be done.

Here's the washup. Whether the sport is actually dirty or not is almost irrelevant - it comes down to the perception. Too many events, played at the wrong time of year, serving no real purpose in the calendar other than to give journeymen a few extra chances to win (or lose) a few matches, only pours fuel on the fire.

The ATP has a real problem on its hands now....Posted byScott Fergusonat16:02

tennis gets crooked.... again

There's nothing like an end-of-season ATP event to bring out the crooked betting patterns. Throw in an Argentinian facing an eastern European and you have a recipe for disaster... or a perfect set-up, depending on which side of legality you are cheering for.

From the highly valuable subscription service, Tennisform

Zeballos came through in a highly suspicious 3 sets against Janko Tipsarevic, who judging by the pre match and in play betting on Betfair had no intention of winning. Tipsarevic drifted markedly in the Betfair market in the hour before the match started eventually going off the underdog and despite winning the opening set and appearing to be the better player in the second set he was still odds against with Zeballos trading at 1.25 prior to the start of the final set. Some bookies have reportedly voided the match. Tipsarevic said afterwards that he felt a pain in his back in yesterday’s doubles match and today things only worsened. "My opponent was trying to make me run from left to right, and I could not do this. That’s why I tried to play “serve’n’volley” which is so out of character for me," Tipsarevic said. "I have three more tournaments to play this season and I do want to be 100 % fit for the next one in St. Petersburg." (Forum extract) "Here the money clearly knew he was going to tank, even when he was winning." Zeballos 4/6 6/4 6/3.

After the match, Tipsarevic claimed on Twitter to have choked on the key points.

"Biggest choke EVER...All my life playing like shit when I defend the points(finals here last year)on the same week...sigh...no comment..."

Then said in the press conference he had been injured in a doubles match the previous day. "If it was another tournament, not the Kremlin Cup, then I have would have pulled out, but I really enjoy playing in Moscow" ... ""My opponent was trying to make me run from left to right, and I could not do this. That’s why I tried to play “serve’n’volley” which is so out of character for me," Tipsarevic said. "I have three more tournaments to play this season and I do want to be 100 % fit for the next one in St. Petersburg."

Pre-match, the Serb drifted from 1.18 (82% chance of winning) to 2.20 (45% chance) with strong liquidity, not just small chance. And it's not as if Tipsarevic has a clean record when it comes to dodgy tennis...

July 17, 2009 from Tennisform again. "Fears over match-fixing in men's tennis have surfaced for the third time in a month after "extreme movements" in betting patterns on a match between two top 100 players led to cancellation of markets and reports to the authorities. A flood of "unusual" money was placed on Spain's Oscar Hernandez, the world No 56, to beat Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic, the world No 79, in straight sets in the first round of the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart on Tuesday. High street firms including William Hill suspended betting, while Betfair reported "extreme movements" as abnormal sums were matched on Hernandez. The Spaniard won 6-4, 6-4. The match has been referred to the Gambling Commission and to the sport's in-house Tennis Integrity Unit for investigation. The case is at least the sixth in men's tennis in 2009 to be referred to the GC, the TIU or both."


For those who read this and aren't familiar with the betting elements here and how big an issue this is, here's the case against Tipsarevic:

1 - major drift in the betting against him just before the match.

2 - when he wins the first set, he is even more of an outsider. In a three-set match between two players priced fairly evenly, the winner of the first set should move from 2.0 into around 1.33. Instead, Zeballos who started the match at around 1.8, got shorter after LOSING the first set and then shortened dramatically into 1.25 for the start of the final set. If the match was so even, then it would be reasonable to expect Zeballos would only be a marginal favourite.

3 - ooh, I choked. What a cop-out.

4 - bookmakers aren't stupid. Most suspicious betting comes from the same sources - accts they watch very closely and use as their warning system. When these guys get involved when the odds aren't logical, something is up.

5 - he has a history of such scams, and nothing was done about it.

If it was betting people knowing he was injured pre-match, then the fluctuations wouldn't have been so severe during the match. Sometimes it happens that a player isn't as hurt as they thought and can play a lot better. The evidence is very compelling that it was lot more than that. Betfair continued to trade throughout, with significantly higher volumes than usual, and if called upon, their data will be shared with the ATP and Tennis Integrity Unit. But if past events are anything to go by, nothing will happen. The ATP love getting involved in suspending players for six months for placing €5 bets, but when a genuinely fraudulent match comes up, they crap themselves....

UPDATE - Two hours after the 'choked' tweet, Tipsarevic had obviously been copping some abuse on Twitter..

"Hmmm...Should I really keep this Twitter accout (sic)..."

Oh, and if you think this is an isolated event because I haven't reported one for a while - don't be fooled. It just gets stale after a while....

Here's a link to the in-running odds early in the second set. At that point of the match (Zeballos one set down but a break up) the odds should have reverted to roughly what they were at the start of the match.Posted byScott Fergusonat23:10

ATP Tennis -Andy Murray defeats Roger Federer in Shanghai Masters

by Stephen Lars on Oct.18, 2010, under Sports News, Tennis

Things are not looking too well for the great Roger Federer. And his recent debacle at the Shanghai seems to be the latest prove. Andy Murray went on to defeat the Federer Express in straight sets this Sunday. Murray who has been quite effective against a player that gives such a hassle to most every other player in the professional circuit, managed to defeat Federer by 6-3, 6-2.

Andy Murray not only won the tournament without dropping a set, but he also broke Federer’s serve four times and managed to fight back six break points while outperforming Federer from the serve, with six aces against Federer’s three. In their personal record, Murray has now won 8 of their 13 meetings, making him quite efficient against the player who for so many weeks dominated the ATP rankings.

And truth be said, it is quite uncertain what happened with Federer during the final match. Don’t get us wrong here, Murray played an amazing match and he deserved to win the tournament. But it is hard to understand how his performance dropped the way it did because, let’s face it, the Federer that played and defeated Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals and Novak Djokovic in the semifinals was not the same Federer who went to on to play the final match.

Murray has had somewhat of an irregular season filled with ups and downs. First, he defeated Federer in August, where he won his first tournament of the year. But then he failed to make it pass the third round of the following four tournaments, including his early exit in the third round of the US Open at Flushing Meadows. It has been a long season in the ATP tennis. We’ll keep you updated at it comes to and exciting end in the following month.

US Open tennis previews

Sorry, this is a few days late, but to be honest, not a great deal has changed in the draws. As always, you'll find my Grand Slam tennis previews published at PuntingAce - click here to read them.Posted byScott Fergusonat14:27