Tennis corruption rears again

Tennis corruption rears again

There seems to be one underlying theme across all sports around the globe and that is corruption is widespread throughout.

Whether it is doping, match-fixing, salary cap rorting or any other form of cheating, it seems that every sport has had to deal with their fair share of corruption in recent years.

Cricket has been heavily linked to match-fixing in the past two decades, while an NRL match came under an extensive review last year for suspicious betting and now it is tennis' turn to again be in the spotlight.

On Friday, Italian website ubitennis.com reported that last October's match between Italian Filippo Volandri and Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili at the St. Petersburg Open was under investigation by the Tennis Integrity Unit after suspicious bets were placed on the match.

Gabashvili won the match after losing the first set and it is understood the International Tennis Federation is waiting for the Unit's final report before deciding whether to launch a full investigation.

It is not the first time Volandri has been linked to match-fixing with the 29-year-old named 11 times in a dossier of suspect tennis matches supplied to the ATP by bookmakers in 2007.

Former world No.4 Nikolay Davydenko has been the highest profile player to be investigated but he was cleared of any wrongdoing in 2008 after an extensive inquiry into his loss against Argentine Martin Vassallo Arguello the previous year.

Sixteen-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer, who is president of the Players' Council, expressed his disappointment in the latest match-fixing allegations to rock the sport when told of it after his third-round win over Xavier Malisse at the Australian Open.

"No, because they're both bad. It's not good. Doesn't matter if I think it's 51/49. It doesn't matter. I think it's just unacceptable when athletes, players, whatever you want to call it, try to do things like this or play with the integrity of the sport," Federer said when asked which is worse out of doping and match-fixing.

"I don't know if I get more angry or disappointed. It's just a pity to a game that has given us everything. Why would you want to play with that?"

"You're not only taking a chance for yourself, but for so many other players to harm the sport. That's why it's disappointing to hear those kind of things. You know about it; I haven't heard about it."

It's not only his tennis ability and success that makes Federer such a likeable guy, it's his love of the sport that makes him, in my opinion, the greatest ever player. Many other players would avoid answering the question, while Federer gets genuinely angry that the game he loves is once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

It is unclear if any further action will be taken with the two players alleged to be involved, but let's hope it's the last we hear of it and we can instead focus on the exciting conclusion to the year's first Grand Slam tournament.