Tennis officials yesterday launched an independent review into their anti-corruption practices after allegations the sport’s watchdog had been ineffective in stamping out corruption in the game.
The announcement at the Australian Open came in the wake of media reports criticizing the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) for not adequately investigating 16 players repeatedly flagged over suspicions they had thrown matches in the past decade.
Recent corruption scandals involving the world governing bodies of soccer and athletics have thrown those sports into turmoil and tennis was not keen to follow them down that path, Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) chairman Chris Kermode said.
“We are in a toxic environment for sport at the moment, in terms of it’s an easy target for people to have a go with recent allegations at other governing bodies,” Kermode told reporters in Melbourne.
The review would address issues of transparency and resourcing at the TIU, structural or governance issues, and how to extend the scope of tennis’ anti-corruption education programs.
Tennis authorities repeated they felt the allegations made in the report by the BBC and Buzzfeed News, were historical, but they could help the sport in the long run.
Prominent London barrister Adam Lewis QC will head the inquiry and its report will be made publicly available.
“This should have been done a long time ago,” said one UK-based professional gambler, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think they are just telling people what they want to hear.”
Allegations of match-fixing surfaced at the Australian Open when a global bookmaker suspended betting on a mixed doubles match last Sunday after unusually large amounts were bet on it.
The players have denied any involvement and International Tennis Federation (ITF) president David Haggerty said they had spoken to the TIU afterward.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier