MELBOURNE—An investigation by the BBC into match fixing in tennis said that a 2008 report commissioned by the ATP named 28 players suspected of being involved in fixing matches, but no action against them was taken by the organization.
A third of the players were subsequently involved in suspicious matches, the investigation said. Sixteen players who have been in the Top 50 are involved, the investigation said, as well as Grand Slam doubles winners.
The ATP has vehemently denied that any information about players being involved in match fixing was not properly acted on. ATP CEO Chris Kermode held a press conference at the Australian Open to respond to the joint BBC investigation, and said that suspected players were allowed to keep competing on tour.
"The Tennis Integrity Unit and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that evidence of match fixing has been suppressed for any reason, or isn't being thoroughly investigated," Kermode said. "And while the *BBC* and *BuzzFeed* reports mainly refer to events from about 10 years ago, we will investigate any new information. We always do."
The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) is in charge of anti-corruption across the sport. It was formed in 2008, and has convicted and suspended several dozen players—most of whom are lower ranked—since 2010.
The joint investigation said it also obtained other information and interviewed a dozen sources.
No names were given aside from Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello. They prompted an ATP inquiry when betting exchange Betfair cancelled bets made on a 2007 match in Sopot between the two because of suspicious activity. However, eight of the players are said to be competing at the Australian Open.
In regard to the Davydenko match, in which odds shifted dramatically against the much higher-ranked Russian, the report suggested that the match was fixed.
The ATP chief noted that a concrete case has to be made against players before they can be suspended.
"It requires evidence,” he said. “A year-long investigation into the Solpot match in 2007 found insufficient evidence. As the BuzzFeed report states itself, the investigators hit a brick wall and it just wasn't possible to determine who the guilty party was in relation to this.
“Tennis Integrity Unit anti-corruption investigations have resulted in 18 convictions, of which six have had life bans. There is a zero-tolerance policy on this. We are not complacent. We are very vigilant on this.”
Phone records from Vassallo Arguello reportedly showed that he exchanged 82 texts with a gambler from Sicily, including before a match in which he bet and won $86,000.
While it could not be proven that either player contrived to fix the match in Sopot, the report said there "may well have had a different conclusion" if there had been "the full support of Betfair account holders and all requested itemized telephone billings.”
"In almost 20 years of working in the betting industry … I have never seen a match or a race at such unrealistic odds," Mark Phillips, an investigator appointed by the ATP in 2008, was quoted as saying in the report.
The report also identified three betting syndicates as suspicious, starting with one in Russia that bet on five suspicious matches and won $357,000. One from Sicily bet on 12 matches and won $930,000. Another in Northern Italy was involved in 28 suspicious matches and won $930,000, and was identified as the most concerning because of activity that suggested "that both players in the match are involved in the conspiracy."
"There was a core of about 10 players that we believed were the most common perpetrators, that were at the root of the problem, really," Phillips said, according to the report. "We had spent months and months gathering this evidence and packaging it up, and we thought the TIU would be really excited to get it.