Just before the Australian Open began, the world of tennis was rocked by allegations of widespread match-fixing. Reports published by the BBC and BuzzFeed News after a joint investigation claimed that even Grand Slam events had been venues for corruption.
“We saw a small number of people placing a large amount of money,” Marco Blume, an official at the website, Pinnacle Sports, told the New York Times. “In context, these matches are rather small. That means that any aggressive betting behavior is very easy to detect on our side.”
Hlavackova and Kubot won the match, 6-0, 6-3, with the first set lasting just 20 minutes. According to the Times, Arruabarrena and Marrero denied any involvement in match-fixing. From the newspaper’s report:
First-round mixed doubles matches typically generate little gambling action, but more than $25,000 had been wagered on another website, the betting exchange Betfair, a few hours before the [Arruabarrena-Marrero/Hlavackova-Kubot] match was scheduled to start. By comparison, three other mixed doubles matches scheduled for similar times on Sunday had generated less than $2,000 combined.
Match-fixing? Marrero blamed a knee injury for his performance in doubles with Arruabarrena https://t.co/z2nScwptfK pic.twitter.com/YKhSjrWnHz
— Tennis (@tennis_photos) January 24, 2016
Unusual betting patterns are not enough evidence to confirm match-fixing, and, for example, sometimes insiders get word that a certain player is nursing an injury and use that information to place wagers. On Sunday, Marrero cited a knee injury in explaining his team’s poor showing.
Authorities in the game created a Tennis Integrity Unit several years ago to investigate allegations of corruption, although the BBC/BuzzFeed reports claimed that very little has been done to either punish or deter incidents of match-fixing. A spokesman for the TIU declined to comment to ESPN about the suspicions raised Sunday.
Blume told the Times that after Pinnacle Sports set the betting line for the Arruabarrena-Marrero/Hlavackova-Kubot match, so much money was wagered for Hlavackova-Kubot that the company moved its line sharply to attract betting for the other side, standard practice for sports books. Then it reduced the minimum bet from $500 to $100, but action still kept coming in against Arruabarrena-Marrero, at which point Pinnacle suspended gambling on the match.
Marrero is ranked 32nd among men in doubles, while Arruabarrena is the 33rd among women; Kubot is ranked 28th among men, and Hlavackova is 20th among women.
