Tennis Betting Scandals Reloaded After Sharapova’s Case

Tennis betting scandals were thought to be done with for the time being, however the past week’s cases with Sharapova’s positive drug test shed new light on certain things. An Italian prosecutor revealed his findings regarding match fixing and plans on uncovering more cases of corruption.

Based on a report published on BBC Sport, the Italian prosecutor Roberto di Martino says more investigations would be necessary to reveal all the corrupt cases in tennis.  As he said, more than 20 top players should be questioned in terms of possible links to betting rings.

Italian Tennis Betting Scandals

Despite the two Italian sportsmen – Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali –  have already been charged due to their, and di Martino wants to urge authorities to check more players in terms of tennis betting scandals. He expressed his regrets on BBC and BuzzFeed News that authorities are not taking the results of his investigation seriously enough.

As a reaction to his charge, the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) disagreed with the prosecutor’s statement by ignoring his results in match fixing.

Di Martino has a solid basis of being convinced about the success of his scrutiny, as he spent two years investigating a suspected match fixing ring. During his investigation, he gathered conversations between players and gamblers which had surprising results.  He found that more than two dozen non-Italian players were involved in these conversations and without revealing their names he added, two of them are in leading position.

As the previously mentioned two Italian tennis players Starace and Bracciali have been charged due to conspiring in match fixing between 2007 and 2011. With this in mind, di Martino would accelerate further investigations including Wimbledon and the French Open.

TIU’s Reaction to the Revealed Tennis Betting Scandals

When he sent his investigation files to TIU containing the names of the affected players, the authority said the cases were Italian specific.

However, di Martino said to the Tennis Betting Authority in the report published on BBC, ‘The international aspect seems more problematic than a situation involving a few Italian players.’

He strongly disagrees with the negligent attitude of TIU as it failed to react 16 cases about suspicious betting on tennis which was strongly refuted by the tennis authority in their statement published on The Straits Times.

After reading this you might want to know how to bet on tennis properly, and we have a great betting guide to teach you the ins and outs of this exciting freetime activity.