High-level tennis match-fixing uncovered by two media outlets

Secret files exposing evidence of widespread suspected match fixing at the top of world tennis, including at Wimbledon, can be revealed.

The BBC, in a programme to be aired on Tuesday, claim a joint investigation with Buzzfeed shows: “Over the last decade 16 players who have ranked in the top 50 have been repeatedly flagged to the Tennis Integrity Unit [attached to the Association of Tennis Professionals] over suspicions they have thrown matches”.

The enquiry reportedly found betting syndicates in Russia, Northern Italy and Sicily which were making hundreds of thousands of pounds off of alleged match fixing.

Ben Gunn, a former police chief who led the review that recommended the formation of the TIU after 2008, said world tennis was failing to confront the issue of match-fixing.

Three of the allegedly fixed games took place at Wimbledon, the report claims.

The BBC added: “Eight of the players repeatedly flagged to the TIU over the past decade are due to play in the Australian Open”. But Mark Phillips, one of the investigators in the 2007 probe, told the BBC: “There was a core of about 10 players that we believed were the most common perpetrators that were at the root of the problem”.

A 2008 follow up report said that 28 of the players should be examined, however this was not followed up according to the BuzzFeed BBC report. The report cites leaked documents as well as an independent analysis of match data as evidence of suspected match fixing.

“They could have got rid of a network of players that would have nearly completely cleared the sport up”, he told the BBC. In 2009, The Independent reported that up to 12 players were on an official watch list.

About 50 matches involving suspicious betting were flagged for TIU in 2015 alone – about one per week.

Tennis Australia, the Association of Tennis Professionals and the Tennis Integrity Unit have been contacted for comment. Willerton said authorities took no action and the evidence was shelved because lawyers said an integrity code introduced after the investigation could not be enforced retrospectively. It had said that tennis attracted more suspicious gambling activity than any other sport.

But tennis authorities said that there is no complacency when it comes to fighting corruption.