Federico Luzzi has been banned from the ATP Tour for 200 days and fined €35,000 for gambling on the results of matches.
The game’s anti-corruption initiative found the 139-ranked Italian had bet 273 times on matches between May 2004 and April 2007.
28-year-old Luzzi had bet on himself, but there was nothing to show he had attempted to affect the outcome of a match.
He is the fifth Italian to be implicated, following the most recent, Giorgio Galimberti, who was banned for 100 days and fined €25,000 last month.
Last week a spectator at the Dubai Open was ejected from the ground for relaying results over a mobile phone. Doing this before the umpire has announced the score gives gamblers an advantage when betting and the WTA intends fighting corruption in the game with an information database, as part of their zero-tolerance policy.
Technology means tennis is becoming increasingly attractive to betting syndicates and it is almost impossible to prove that any player has deliberately thrown a match. Tennis is in danger of losing its integrity to betting in the way athletics lost its own over drugs. |
.gif)
