Game, set and mis-match

Tennis’ hallowed turf of Wimbledon has not escaped being soiled by the scourge of match-fixing.

Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported last year that eight matches at Wimbledon were reported to the tennis authorities on suspicion that their results have been fixed by professional gambling syndicates.

The matches were named in a dossier compiled by leading bookmaking companies, which monitor suspect betting patterns and players thought to be willing to throw games.

Accurate matches fixed bets today

Four of the matches were from the 2007 men’s singles at Wimbledon and involved non-British players who each lost by three sets.

The dossier identifies sudden spikes in the sums wagered. More than £450m was bet on the 2007 Wimbledon tournament through just one British internet site, Betfair.

If you think tennis professionals wouldn’t have a bar of match-fixing, because of the generous prize-money they would be missing out on, think again.

A player at Wimbledon would earn £10,000 for competing in the first round, with extra prize money of only £6,325 for progressing to the second round.

On the other hand, bets of £400,000 – a figure mentioned in the dossier for just one internet site – could net a player a windfall of £80,000 or more, depending on the odds.