Wimbledon 2008: Stuck under the match fixing cloud
June 26th, 2008THE 2008 Wimbledon tennis tournaments in London has started. These grass court tournaments enjoy a special place in the itinerary of all tennis players. Our very own tennis sensation Sania Mirza, now ranked 32 in the world, faced a tough fight to notch up her win and move into the second round. Her opponent was Colombia’s Catalina Cas-tano ranked 146th in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) charts. Her preparations for the big event were not up to the standard and she had to take a medical break in the second set while trailing 1-5. However, Sania finally won 7-6(3) 3-6 6-2. She began her career in 2003 and has several achievements to her credit.
The Wimbledon is, this year, under a cloud. There are rumors of match fixing by gambling syndicates last year. The doubts arose from studying the betting patterns and the sudden spikes in certain cases in the amount of money placed as bets. It seems that eight matches of the previous year are feared to have been fixed. Four of these are from the men’s singles and involved foreign players who each lost by three sets.
Match fixing is linked to other games like boxing, and cricket but, tennis has always been considered to be a game of pure sportsman spirit and a game of the upper class. The struggle between two individuals is seen in pin drop silence by the audience and the slightest sound from the audience is viewed seriously by the umpires. Tennis is a game where lines are drawn and no one tries to ignore the niceties. There are players, especially women players, who grunt as they send the ball to far corners of the court. These have become second nature to them because what the audience listens to are the sounds of the ball ricocheting between the rackets and the sounds that emanate from the pair in the middle. However, no one has ever suspected that this game of the royalty would one day be smeared with the cloud of match fixing.
The authorities admitted that it would be ’naïve’ to say there was no corruption in tennis but insisted that fears over the threat posed by match-fixing are exaggerated. An integrity unit will be instituted to crack down on corruption and authorities are likely to announce penalties as harsh as three-year bans and fines of up to 50,000 pounds for any player fund to be involved in match-fixing.