When there are suspicious betting patterns on tennis matches, who looks out for the bettors interests?

In May, the ATP announced the completion of its “Environmental Review of Integrity in Professional Tennis.” In other words, is there match fixing going on in professional tennis or isn’t there?

The answer is: yes and no.

First of all, the co-authors, Ben Gunn and Jeff Rees, former police officers who specialize in anti-corruption programs in sports, have found “no evidence of any ‘Mafia’ involvement” in gambling. However, they don’t doubt that “criminal elements” might be involved in corrupting players and officials and those criminal elements might include “organized criminal gangs.”

The report also says that a “number of [Betfair.com] account holders are successfully laying higher ranked players to lose/backing lesser ranked players to win” and it appears that those bettors used inside information to make those bets. If you remember, this is what put this whole “integrity” movement in motion: there were suspicious betting patterns on a match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo-Arguello in Sopot last August. Some Betfair users laid a whole lot of money on Vassallo-Arguello, who was ranked much lower than Davydenko, and made him the favorite before the match had begun. And Vassallo-Arguello remained the favorite even after Davydenko won the first set. Davydenko retired in the third set and Betfair made the unprecedented move of voiding all bets.

The report then talks about tanking tennis matches (not trying hard enough), unauthorized use of credentials to get access to the players’ locker room, and abusive behavior towards players by coaches and “other related persons.”

Despite those problems, the co-authors conclude that “professional tennis is not institutionally or systematically corrupt.”

I don’t have any problem with these conclusions though I’m not exactly sure that there’s much difference between “organized criminal gangs” and “Mafia.” I suppose it’s a matter of scale. A small time organization doesn’t qualify for the term Mafia. Or maybe tennis is just sensitive to the term Mafia ever since the Russian Mafia was attached to the Davydenko case because the bettors laying down the big money came from Russia.

But I am concerned about something at the moment. There have been a suspicious betting patterns since the Davydenko/Vassallo-Arguello match and yet Betfair did not void the bets. Professional tennis is watching out for itself by churning out an environmental integrity report and creating an integrity unit, but who’s protecting the bettors?

On April 14, Oscar Hernandez played Juan-Pablo Brzezicki in an ATP match in Houston. Brzezicki won the first set and was up 2-0 in the second set and yet his odds of winning the match on Betfair had dropped since the beginning of the match while Hernandez’ odds of winning the match had increased. Hernandez finally did win the match in three sets. Betfair users contacted Betfair to alert them to the suspicious betting pattern on this match but Betfair settled all bets very quickly after the match ended.

On May 21st, Teimuraz Gabashvili played Blaz Kavcic in Poertschach. Even though Gabashvili was ranked number 125 at the time and Kavcic was ranked number 357, Gabashvili’s odds of winning the match dropped after he won the first set and they continued to drop after he won the first game of the second set at love. Gabashvili ended up losing the match to Kavcic in three sets.

If you go to the Betfair Forum on the day of this match, you’ll see 15 pages of complaints about the suspicious nature of the betting pattern. On page 10, Betfair officials posted this message:

We are aware of customer concerns in relation to the above market and are currently investigating. On completion of the match we will follow our normal procedure for these circumstances: the market will be settled and we will suspend the accounts and freeze funds of any accounts which we believe warrant further investigation. Additionally, we will liaise with the ATP In accordance with our Memorandum of Understanding with them.

Betfair may decide to suspend or freeze an account, but once the market is settled, it’s too late for bettors who lost money on that match. Their money is gone.

The Davydenko/Vassallo-Arguello match brought a huge amount of unwanted publicity to tennis because Betfair had never voided all bets on a match before. People who previously had little interest in tennis were all over the incident and not because they cared about tennis. Despite repeated messages from Betfair users calling for all bets on the Hernandez-Kavcic match to be voided, Betfair did not void bets and has not voided any match since Davydenko/Vassallo-Arguello.

Betfair has its own team of integrity experts as does the ATP and WTA. But Betfair seems to be handing the problem over to tennis by using the “normal procedure” of settling the market. It saves the world of tennis further embarrassment by not voiding the bets, but it doesn’t protect Betfair users who aren’t sure they’re betting on fair match.

The U.S. men actually looked like they belonged on the dirt in Paris for a change.

I feel like I just stepped into the annual United States Dirtballer’s Convention. Five of the U.S. men won their first round matches at the French Open in Paris. One of them, Wayne Odesnik, actually won a second round match if you can believe that.

U.S. tennis players don’t typically have the mindset for grinding on dirt. Pete Sampras preferred his points shorter which may explain why he only got as far as the semifinals here, which, if you think about it, was a surprisingly good result. Andre Agassi won a title here but he wasn’t a grinder, he was a dictator. He moved the ball around and his opponent had to run after it.

Michael Chang won a title here too but he wasn’t a grinder as much as a trickster. I can still see John McEnroe muttering loudly to himself as Chang sent lob after lob over Mac’s outstretched racket. Then there were those underhand serves that knocked Ivan Lendl out of the French Open on the way to Chang’s 1989 title.

Jim Courier, now he was a grinder and he won two titles here. On the other hand, he also won two Australian Opens and reached a Wimbledon final before losing to Sampras, so he was an all-surface grinder.

Okay, so the U.S. isn’t immune to dirt but look who played well this year on clay: Andy Roddick got to the semifinals in Rome before he retired with an injury that is keeping him home this week, and Sam Querrey got to the quarterfinals at Monte Carlo. Querrey is one of those overfed, overtall U.S. players whose games are designed for concrete. Didn’t Querrery hit ten straight aces past the far from slow James Blake last year?

John Isner is even taller, almost Ivo Karlovic tall, and here he was up two sets to none before losing to Juan Ignacio Chela in five sets. I notice, by the way, that the French tennis federation is suppressing videos of the tournament uploaded to youtube. Wasn’t it bad enough that they tried to stop gambling on the French Open, do they have to take away our viewing pleasure too?

Vince Spadea is the ultimate scrapper. His goal is to annoy the hell out of you and that’s true off the court too. And I’m not referring to his rapping. He wrote a book called Break Point: The Secret Diary of a Pro Tennis Player in which he dished some dirt from the locker room. I haven’t read it yet and the dirt didn’t amount to much as far as I know, but players don’t appreciate their business leaving the locker room.

Spadea crawled back from two sets down in the first round to even his match with Julien Benneteau before losing in five sets. While he was at it, he got in the face of a few of Benneteau’s home crowd spectators. Feisty and scrappy tend to go together. Spadea is a poser with all his rapping and styling but you know what, he’s a poser who’s grown on me over time because his intensity is real.

I don’t know that he’ll ever develop an entertainment gene or write anything close to an interesting rhyme, but the guy has spent most of the past 14 years in the top one hundred and that says a lot. In 1999 he got just inside the top 20 then dropped down to the 200’s before climbing back to the top twenty in 2004. Can you think of anyone else who’s done something like that besides Agassi? Spadea started dropping out of the top 100 this month. If this is the end, it’s been a long and intense career.

U.S. player Donald Young played U.S. player Robbie Ginepri in the first round. Unless Young somehow managed to flip over the net and crash into Ginepri causing a double wipeout of epic proportions, a U.S. player was likely to win that match.

I’ve always worried about Young because he hasn’t grown with the rest of the crowd. He was 5ft 9in (175cm) while other U.S. players were sprouting to 6ft 6in (198cm) and higher. His profile says he’s six feet tall but that’s probably an exaggeration and he still looks like a spindly kid to me.

I love Young’s aggressive net game but I just don’t see him launching himself into his ground shots with as much forward directed force as I see with other players. Gustavo Kuerten, who played his last ceremonial match here this week, was also spindly but he generated a lot power. Young could go far with his speed but the other players who have less power and lots of speed – Nikolay Davydenko and David Ferrer immediately jump to mind – have more physically imposing games than Young.

Bobby Reynolds is Ginepri’s roommate and he beat Frenchman Thierry Ascione without annoying the crowd. Mardy Fish took out Agustin Calleri and that’s pretty good considering that Calleri is an Argentinian dirtball specialist who reached the semifinals at Casablanca last week.

Blake is the last of the five players still alive and he has a pretty good shot at reaching the fourth round. He’s lucky, though, because Odesnik gets Novak Djokovic next and Ginepri gets Igor Andreev so enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s time for the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season so check out our Fantasy Tennis Guide. You’ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game.

Sign up and join our subleague! It’s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.

This week’s submission deadline is Sunday morning, May 25, 4am (EST) in the U.S./10am (CET) in Europe. Pay attention because the French Open starts on Sunday this year so pick your team before you go to bed Saturday night.

This is the first of three slams in the Fantasy Tennis Season and since each slam pays more than twice as much as Masters Series events, slams are by far the most important events of the season. We need eight singles players for our team so let’s pick the quarterfinalists, two players from each quarter.

French Open draw (clay, first prize: $1,384,615)

Poor Sam Querrey, he’s been showing real promise in the clay court season and now he has to play Federer in the first round. Is there anyone who can prevent Federer from getting to the quarterfinals? Mario Ancic reached the quarterfinals here two years ago but he’s 1-5 against Federer and he hasn’t gone past the third round on clay this year. Juan Monaco looks the most promising and he did take Federer to three sets in Monte Carlo on clay last year, but he hasn’t gone past the third round of a clay Masters events this year and he hasn’t beaten any highly ranked players. Thus, Federer is my first pick.

Richard Gasquet is in the bottom half of Federer’s draw but he’s been talking about needing a break from tennis so I’m not using a pick on him. Fernando Gonzalez did win two minor clay court tournaments this year but he hasn’t been past the third round here since 2003 and he withdrew from Rome with a hamstring injury.

Igor Andreev is 8-9 on clay this year but he does have victories over Mikhail Youzhny, Nicolas Almagro, and Monaco so he could well meet Stanislaw Wawrinka in the fourth round. Wawrinka is having a breakout year. He reached the final in Rome and the semifinals in Barcelona. This match is a tossup because Wawrinka is playing better this year while Andreev has a better record at the French Open. Wawrinka has never gone past the third round while Andreev has never done worse than the third round. Andreev reached the quarterfinals last year so he gets my second pick.

Nikolay Davydenko has reached the semifinals or quarterfinals here the past three years and his path to the quarterfinals looks pretty good. Juan Carlos Ferrero hasn’t gone past the third round since 2004. Gael Monfils is always dangerous but he hasn’t been past the third round of an ATP tournament this year. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won his first ATP match on clay exactly two weeks ago. Davydenko is my third pick.

It might be tough to come up with a pick from the bottom half of Davydenko’s quarter. David Ferrer reached the quarterfinals three years ago but hasn’t gone past the third round since. He is 12-4 on clay this year but only 3-3 in clay Masters events. Tommy Robredo has been solid this year. He reached two quarterfinals at the clay Masters events and he’s reached the quarterfinals here the past three years. Can he get past Radek Stepanek? He’s 3-0 on clay against him so I’m guessing he can. Robredo is my fourth pick.

Novak Djokovic is the obvious choice in the bottom half of his quarter but the top half is the toughest to pick because no player sticks out. Tomas Berdych has never made it past the fourth round here and he went out in the first round last year. And he just missed five weeks due to injury. Who else is there? Marcos Baghdatis has been injured and hasn’t played a match on clay yet. Janko Tipsarevic is 4-4 on clay. Both Baghdatis and Tipsarevic beat James Blake on clay this year. See what I mean? It’ll probably come down to Baghdatis and Berdych, who can both beat Tipsarevic on clay, and since Berdych has played four clay court matches in the past two weeks, I’m going to cover my eyes, hope for the best, and make him my sixth pick.

Rafael Nadal is also the obvious choice in the bottom half of his quarter. The upper half has two very strong players in Nicolas Almagro and David Nalbandian. Almagro has beaten Nalbandian on clay twice this year but Nalbandian is the better slam player. Almagro has never made it past the second round here while Nalbandian has reached two semifinals in the past four years. I dropped out of the top 100 in the Fantasy Tennis Season standings last year because I didn’t believe in Nalbandian in the Paris Masters event, but here I am again and I still don’t believe in him. Almagro is my eight pick.

One last thing: two years ago four seeded players reached the quarterfinals and last year it was five. It’s likely to be five this year again since the top three ranked players are so strong on clay, so if you like an unseeded player, remember that at least three of them are likely to make it to the quarterfinals.

My Picks

Here are my French Open picks: Federer, Andreev, Davydenko, Robredo, Berdych, Djokovic, Almagro, Nadal.

Happy fantasies!

Roscoe Tanner is in trouble for bouncing a check. Again.

Tanner turned himself into authorities in Knox County, Tennessee, on Sunday, May 18th, on charges of felony theft of over $60,000. Tanner purchased two Toyota Highlanders from Toyota of Knoxville and the check was returned for insufficient funds. He was released on a $2,000 bond. I understand that his hearing is set for May 27th.

In 2000, Tanner wrote a check to boat dealer Gene Gammon for $35,595 towards the purchase of a 32 foot yacht and bounced the check. Gammon never saw the boat again. Tanner used it as collateral on a $10,000 loan and the boat was repossessed.

Tanner spent six week in jail in Germany – where he’d fled to avoid detection – and 17 weeks in jail in Florida because he couldn’t afford bail. He was eventually sentenced to ten years probation for the bad check. He failed to make regular restitution payments that were a requirement of the probation and he was sentenced to two years in prison in 2006.

In 2004, he served five months in jail in New Jersey for failing to make payments on a $500,000 paternity settlement for a child fathered during a one night stand with an escort. He also owes many years of unpaid child support payments to his ex-wife Charlotte.

Tanner appears to have behavioral problems that repeated stints in jail have not cured. He’s certainly had enough help. Tennis clubs all over the U.S. and Europe have hired him as an instructor. Christian groups have counseled him on ways to change his behavior. His fellow tennis pros have loaned him money. And his father, who died last year, left him a trust fund that provides for his basic needs.

Most people subscribe to one of two theories about Tanner’s repeatedly irresponsible behavior.

1. The spoiled child theory. Tanner was raised in a well-to-do family and given whatever he wanted and and he’s never grown up and learned to take responsibility for his actions.

2. The successful athlete theory. This is the explanation Tanner himself subscribes to. He was very good at forgetting his losses and blocking out any negative distractions and also had boundless confidence. After his tennis career ended, these traits took the form of ignoring bills or legal judgments against him because he was convinced that a solution was just around the corner.

Neither explanation seems adequate at this point and maybe it’s time to admit that Tanner has deeper problems that require professional attention.

Earlier this week I talked about the game of musical chairs being played out by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic as they jockey for the top three spots in the world of ATP tennis. I wondered if anyone ever plays musical chairs or not and, lo and behold, frequent Tennis Diary contributor Jenny, who lives in London, described a rollicking doggy version of that very game. A Ringcraft Club is a club for dog handlers in case you were wondering.

They still play musical chairs here, we have a doggy version at our ringcraft club party nights. That’s a sight for sore eyes I can tell you, especially when you have the large Shepherds, Rotties and Labs trying to leap onto their owners’ laps, those chairs can only take so much weight – I can’t tell you the number of bent metal chairs we’ve had to replace! On second thoughts, I suppose we could submit them to the local modern art gallery!