8 Wimbledon Matches Fixed, Dossier Claims!

[BlooInBloo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/22/wimbledon-gambling-scanda_n_108525.html

"Last year the New York Times reported on a widening gambling scandal in professional tennis that implicated highly-ranked players. Now, allegations have arisen that eight Wimbledon matches (the tournament begins Monday) were fixed by professional gambling syndicates:

Eight matches at Wimbledon have been reported to the tennis authorities on suspicion results have been fixed by professional gambling syndicates.


The matches have been named in a dossier compiled by leading bookmaking companies responsible for monitoring suspect betting patterns and players thought to be willing to throw game..."

[joeybee12]

1. Ok, now I sort of believe this since Davydenko lost this morning...

...he has a way of losing early matches, and being so highly ranked, there's probabbly a big payoff when someone bets on his opponent.

[hughee99]

2. This caught my eye...

The 4 seed Davydenko going down in straight sets in the 1st round to an unranked challenger.
The 7 seed Nalbandian loses (straight sets) to an unranked challenger in the 1st round.
The 3 seed Djokovic also in 3 sets losing to unranked Safin in the 2nd round.

I'm not saying that upsets don't happen, but it's odd to see three top seeds not even be very competitive in matches that they should easily win, and in a grand slam event no less.

[joeybee12]

4. Actually, Safin winning doesn't surprise me...

...the guy is incredibly talented, still young, and seems to have a resurgance every few years...he beat Federer in the semis of the Australian 4 years back, and has won the US Open. What gets me is Davydenko, a Russian, and, seriously, the Russian Mafia has its hand in everything.

[hughee99]

5. Safin was less suprising, but in straight sets? n/t

[joeybee12]

6. That's true, but the times he's won the big ones, he's rolled over his

opponents...beating Sampras in straight sets in the US Open Final, and also beating Hewitt in straight sets in the Aussie Final. I think the guy has an incredible amount of talent, but doesn't have his head on straight.

No upsets on the women's side, though.

[Iggo]

3. "The Syndicate"

The old word for "underworld" or "mafia" or "organized crime" from 70s movies and crime shows.

I always liked that term: The Syndicate.

Anyway, carry on....

[Awsi Dooger]

8. Throw those terms out there and they're gobbled up

A mysterious air, so evil.

Meanwhile, I'd love to bet the matches weren't fixed. Whenever this topic comes up let me have the no and I'll be right at least 90% of the time.

Granted, tennis is an ideal target with the one on one aspect, and with such varied surfaces as clay leading directly to grass the upsets aren't really shocking. But the multi pronged approach of getting to someone to dump a match, then letting only a select group know about it, then have them wager huge sums at favorable odds without leaking or immediate suspicion, and collecting on those bets, well it's all wonderful fantasy for the most part.

Conspiracies are true in back rooms, shuffled numbers with no one watching or able to detect for days/weeks/months/whatever. Sports fixes are out in the open by definition, thousands of live witnesses, so by definition they are overwhelmingly mythological.

Non-gamblers seem to fall for it more than gamblers. When you're involved every day you see betting patterns that could be deemed suspicious, but not everything is logical. When I worked as a sportsbook supervisor we'd frequently have massive total dollars on obscure games, sometimes lopsided. At first you think something's up but then those games fall just like the rest, random outcomes with the house slightly positive via the juice.

[joeybee12]

7. And now Sharapova loses to another Russian, and the fixing is allegedly

done by the Russian Mafia. I'm sold. It's fixed.