Ever since the Nikolay Davydenko betting controversy broke out last year, tennis betting has been under the microscope of everyone connected with the sport, be it officials, players, supporters or even the bookies. However, the truth of the matter is that tennis betting has become one of the most popular forms of sports betting and for honest punters and genuine fans of the game, considerable profits are made on a regular basis without resorting to corruption. For example, it was reported that a punter placed an in-play bet on Andy Murray to come back from 2 sets and beat Richard Gasquet at the recent Wimbledon Championships. The bet was not significantly large, but if it had been, perhaps some serious problems would have arisen. Murray was getting hammered by the Frenchman at the time and looked like a certain underdog in straight sets after the Frenchman played some of the most inspired tennis in the championship. Somehow, Murray managed to find strength of character, will and, not least, excellent form and fought back to win the match in five sets, much to the delight of the cheering crowd on Center Court. The point is that the Murray/Gasquet game was a big one, it received a lot of television coverage and those who watched the game were able to testify quite calmly that Murray’s return was genuine and that Gasquet%u2019’s passing was as sad as it was unfortunate. It was an epic match and I would have won the best match award had it not been for the incredible final between Nadal and Federer. Unfortunately, it’s the low-profile matches that attract match-fixing speculation and when strange and unexpected results occur, then of course tongues will wag and fingers will point and the game we all love is all too easily discredited.
Perhaps bookies should take note of the Vegas books. They reject any bet on tennis unless it is a high-profile game where no doubt can be raised about the integrity of the result. This is highly commendable, but is it fair to the real professional tennis sponsor? There are tennis fans who bet on the unexpected and, very often, these games are exactly the ones in which questions can easily be raised. The difficulty is that there is no complete way to combat the problem anyway, a good player will get the most information on any player he would like to support or against. If that player just stayed up late the night before, or had a minor injury, or didn’t bother to train, then a good player would take advantage of this and make the play for him. Strangely, Davydenko is one of those players who sometimes just can’t be bothered and it will reflect on his game. At the end of the day, he has no need to get involved in match-fixing, he is guaranteed to make millions by virtue of being the number four ranked player in the world, so what does a loss here and a loss there mean to him? u2013 absolutely nothing!
The bookies have a lot to lose if they drop their defenses, but they know full well that a rigged game is unlikely to involve a high-profile player like Davydenko.