Sixteen Top Tennis Players Have Been Accused of Throwing Matches

As the Australian Open kicks off for another year in Melbourne, news is breaking that several top tennis players may have been systematically fixing matches for over a decade.

The BBC is reporting that eight players set to compete at this week's Open have been reported for suspected match throwing. No specific players have been publicly named yet.

These suspected players might be just the tip of the iceberg. Reports allege that over the past 10 years at least 16 top-50 male players, including Grand Slam winners, have been flagged to the Tennis Integrity Unit again and again. All have been allowed to keep playing at an international level without penalty.

A 2007 report, leaked by a group of anonymous whistleblowers, suggests the match fixing may have been driven by betting syndicates in Russia, northern Italy, and Sicily, and potentially made hundreds of thousands of dollars on suspicious games.

BuzzFeed News is alleging corrupt gamblers are offering players upwards of $50,000 to fix matches, often targeting them in their hotel rooms at major tournaments.

Reporter John Templeton spent 15 months analysing gambling patterns on 26,000 professional tennis matches played between 2009 and 2015, trying to find evidence of match fixing. The idea was that match fixing is about winning big—betting a lot of money on a player who's unlikely to win and then cashing in when their opponent throws the game.

Templeton's analysis identified 15 players who "lost heavy-betting matches startlingly often."

The BBC is set to release the whole story—and potentially name names—tomorrow.

More as this story develops.

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