06-11-2007 Tennis players and match-fixing: time to name names

Following an interview to a German television of an unidentified player who claimed that a number of players, "not many of them but always the same ones" are involved in match-fixing in relation to gambling, Tommy Haas said it’s time people start naming names: "Be concrete, then we can undertake something concrete. All this talk isn’t bringing us further."

Meanwhile ATP boss Etienne de Villiers confirmed that players involved in match fixing will be banned from the sport for life.

Elsewhere, legendary Australian bookmaker Gerard Daffy, formerly with Centrebet now with Lasseters, said tennis authorities have been slow to act on long-held suspicions of match-fixing. "It would appear to me that the ATP has waited a long time before doing anything," he told The Age. Commenting on the ATP investigation into last August's match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello, Daffy added: "The Davydenko match is just one of hundreds that had similar betting fluctuations. The ATP have been very quiet on the whole issue and the fact that every day there are two or three tennis players coming out and saying that they have heard about [talk of match-fixing] or they have been offered money, you've just got to wonder whether any of these blokes went to the authorities and, if so, why didn't they do something about it?"