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Officials probe unusual betting activity

Tennis officials were looking into unusual betting activity surrounding a first-round match at Wimbledon between a British player and a higher-ranked opponent who lost in straight sets.

Betting agencies on Wednesday said up to ?300,000 (US$546,000) of wagers were placed on Carlos Berlocq of Argentina, who is ranked 89th, to lose the match on Tuesday -- just hours before his 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 defeat to Richard Bloomfield, who is ranked 170 places below him and only got into the draw as a wild card.

"In the Grand Slams, we have an agreement with them [betting agencies] to give us confidential information if unusual betting patterns take place," Grand Slam administrator Bill Babcock said. "It may be nothing or it may be something."

"Our rules at Grand Slams are that players cannot bet," he added. "We receive information and we have no more comment to make, unless there is something further in the way of a player offense," he said.

London media said the bets on the match were about 30 times more than had been placed on similar British players and foreign opponents. The betting activity led online gambling company Betfair to slash the odds on Bloomfield winning the match from 1-2 to 1-10.

Betfair said it alerted the International Tennis Federation and Britain's Lawn Tennis Association to the unusual betting pattern.

"We contacted the ITF Grand Slam Committee and the LTA to make them aware of betting patterns before the match," Betfair spokesman Tony Calvin said.

"We have information-sharing agreements with both these bodies. Although the amounts involved were not unusual, the betting patterns were. Bloomfield was backed from an opening 1-2 on Betfair to a low of 1-10 pre-match, and this led us to contact the ITF," he said.

The 23-year-old Bloomfield, who was knocked out in the first round at Wimbledon in 2003 and 2004, had never won a match on the main ATP Tour.

Berlocq, 23, who is more successful on clay courts than grass, was making his first appearance at Wimbledon. He told reporters after the match that he picked up a foot injury prior to last month's French Open, where he lost in the first round in straight sets to Ivan Ljubicic.

Bloomfield dropped his second-round match on Wednesday to Germany's Tommy Haas, losing 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (4).

He said that he had not been contacted by the tournament or Grand Slam officials.
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