!201105311227448774793-p2@stats_com by Pete Bodo
There's a reason politicians and other bad actors caught in tawdry scandals often schedule their mea culpa media appearances and public therapy sessions for holidays, or other dates when the minds of most citizens are on something else—usually something pleasant, like sitting in the middle of an enormous traffic jam en route to the beach on Memorial Day or Fourth of July weekend.
However, I'm not sure if the International Tennis Federation tends to issue its suspensions and disciplinary reports right smack in the middle of Grand Slam events because it hopes that the intense focus on the tournament will bury—or highlight—the news. And let's face it, whichever strategy is in effect, it's certainly a different world now than when the habit was established.
In this age of burgeoning Internet media establishment—in particular, Twitter **and Facebook—the odds that something which might damage the credibility of the game could go unnoticed because newspapers couldn't afford to devote limited and valuable space to it is nil. On the other hand, perhaps the ITF is more interested in exhibiting its bona fides as the watchdog of integrity in tennis than shaming the culprits who bet on matches, or get caught doping. When you want to draw attention to yourself for any reason, you could do worse than make your play during a major.
The latest example of how the ITF operates occurred on May 31, right smack dab in the middle of the French Open, when the Tennis Integrity Unit released the news that it banned for life the Austrian player Daniel Koellerer, who was convicted of three violations of the Uniform Tennis Anti-Corruption Program.
The Koellerer match-fixing bust is the biggest controversy of its kind since Nikolay Davydenko was implicated in some funny business at the Sopot tournament in 2007 (Davydenko was ultimately exonerated; here's a good backgrounder). The Davydenko affair shook the tennis world to its foundations, partly because Davydenko was a habitue of the ATP Top 10 and a contender at majors (he appeared in four Grand Slam semifinals), but also because he was a well-liked and sympathetic sort of guy—the small man in a game increasingly ruled by athletic specimens, the self-effacing, Woody Allen-ish Russian who had trouble communicating in any language but his own, the little bald dude afoot among all those well-coiffed and stylized ATP peacocks.
Koellerer is a different breed of cat, and not just in the rankings (he hit a career high of No. 55 in 2009, after which his results went over a cliff; he was down to No. 385 at the time of his suspension and the ATP website currently lists him as, simply, "inactive"). Ironically, Koellerer won the last event he would play as an ATP pro, a Futures event in the Czech Republic.
Or was it his last hurrah? Koeller has until June 20th to fight the lifetime ban, and his manager's latest maneuverings suggest that Koellerer will not go quietly into the night.
That's hardly surprising, for Koellerer has never been one to do anything quietly. It's not for nothing that the 27-year old Austrian was nicknamed "Crazy Dani." Way back in 2006, the ATP suspended him for six months for bad behavior. More recently, Brazilian player Julio Silva accused Koellerer of racism and actually filed an official complaint with the ATP following a match between the two last summer. Even his countrymen have had conflicts with him. Stefan Koubek was thrown out of an Austrian league match for throttling Koellerer during a changeover (Koubek claimed Koellerer insulted him during their match). I won't even get into the number of YouTube videos dedicated to Koellerer freak-outs or controversies inspired by something he did or said. But check out this bizarre one.
Quite coincidentally, I had an occasion to write about Koellerer in 2009, when he posted his career-best run at the major league level, reaching the third round of the U.S. Open. There, he put up a decent fight against Juan Martin del Potro, who would go on to take the title from Roger Federer. I remember thinking that Koellerer was a player whose modest skill and limited talent were matched with out-sized intensity. He certainly gave his all to the battle, but almost always in a way that was right there at the border of acceptable. There comes a point where unchecked determination and the generally admirable joie de combat can become scary. That was the edge that Koellerer always walked.
I'm glad nobody chose to make a big deal when the ITF released its determination in the Koellerer case; tennis needs these match-fixing cases like it needs a hole-in-the-head. Not that the game ought to be protected from controversy at all costs; in fact, it ought to have utmost transparency. But it's also true that insignificant or minor players (does the name Wayne Odesnik ring a bell?) can bring a lot of negative attention, inevitably accompanied by useless hand-wringing and outbreaks of well-intentioned reformism, to tennis. The game certainly needs a vigorous anti-doping and anti-corruption wing, but the general public and media often have no idea of how tennis works, and how little distinction is made between an "ATP pro" like Roger Federer and those other "ATP pros" like Daniel Koellerer, Wayne Odesnik, or any of the other off-the-rankings-radar pros who keep banging their heads against the entry-system wall.
There is probably no other way to fairly administer rules, and it's true that violations are violations, no matter who commits them. But there's a big difference between ATP pros who play the tour on a week-to-week basis and the countless journeymen and aspirants who inhabit the lower regions of the game, the Challenger and Futures events, where the opportunity to pick up a bit of quick cash without raising many eyebrows is obvious. Tennis is a little like boxing that way. Some of the stuff that goes on far down in the food chain is reprehensible, but that's life in any netherworld. Usually, the nasty stuff is filtered out as you rise up through the ranks to the level where it would be remarkably stupid for a player to risk bringing the game, and himself, into disrepute by fixing matches or doping. So it isn't that the top players are somehow morally superior. What they certainly are is luckier, wealthier, and less susceptible to temptation—or stupidity.
You have to feel for the guys trying to make a living at the level where Koellerer has spent almost all of his career. As long as tennis is an individual sport with an escalator that can carry players from the very bottom of the profession to very close to the peak—and back again—in what seems the blink of an eye, it will always be subject to match-fixing offenses and suspensions. And the flip side of the bad press that accompanies even the most minor scandal is that even a Koellerer can make a miracle run like he did in 2009. It's wonderful that a player can literally still become an overnight sensation in this game—even if he's gone by the proverbial next day.
I hope Koellerer decides not to exercise his right to appeal the ban, and I imagine many other people share that sentiment. He's a bad actor, and the game is better off without him.