The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) has denied any wrongdoing in the sport after sports betting integrity organization ESSA reported 73 suspicious tennis matches occurred in 2015.
The ESSA is a not for profit company that analyze and reports on the integrity in sports. In their recently published report in the final quarter of 2015, the ESSA concluded that in 100 incidents of suspicious betting patterns identified, 73 occurred in tennis.
The 73 matches were flagged up in the ‘ESSA Alert System’. The system is created by members of the ESSA and it relates to suspicious transactions detected by their own internal control systems. All of the 73 matches identified by the company were sent to the TIU for them to investigate. Following the recent figures produced by the ESSA, the TIU has released a statement to Press Association Sport concerning the recent findings.
“ESSA is one of the organisations that has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Tennis Integrity Unit.
“All information supplied by betting operators is analysed by the TIU. This analysis includes many other factors that can influence results, including player fitness, fatigue, form, playing conditions and personal circumstances.
“If the analysis suggests suspicious activity, the TIU moves to investigation, which includes interviewing players, taking phones and laptops.
“An alert can be an indicator of suspicious activity. But it is not proof or evidence that corruption has taken place.
“On its own, betting data is not sufficient to bring forward a successful prosecution; it has to be considered, assessed and verified along with the TIU’s many other sources of intelligence.
“Statistics of the kind released today by ESSA must be considered in that light.”
Tennis has been rocked by multiple allegations of match-fixing this year. Hours before the Australian Open, a joint investigation between the BBC and Buzzfeed News reported that numerous cases of corruption in the sport have occurred in recent years. Both the tennis governing bodies and the players dismiss the suggestion that the sport is corrupt. It was announced earlier this month that there will be an independent review into the integrity of tennis.
