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"Unless you are one of the very top players in the world, you struggle to make a living" - Sean Ingle on tennis' most pressing issue

Guardian journalist and ardent tennis fan Sean Ingle joined Joe over Skype earlier to talk tennis...



"Unless you are one of the...
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"Unless you are one of the very top players in the world, you struggle to make a living" - Sean Ingle on tennis' most pressing issue

Guardian journalist and ardent tennis fan Sean Ingle joined Joe over Skype earlier to talk tennis' number one enemy: match-fixing.

It's a little known fact for most that prize money in tennis, for those ranking outside of the top 100, is scant when compared to what players receive from top ATP tournaments around the world.

Just last year, 2016 Australian Junior Open champion Oliver Anderson escaped potential jail-time after admitting to fixing the first set of his Traralgon Challenger tie - one of many ATP events that offers just $50,000 (roughly €41,000) in prize money shared among all 64 players involved - against fellow Aussie Harrison Lombe in October 2016.

Anderson was heavy pre-match favourite for the tie and yet, after 'losing' the first-set 6-4, he won the next two sets easily 6-2, 6-0. 

"Unless you are one of the very top players in the world, you struggle to make a living" - Sean Ingle on tennis' most pressing issue

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The Oliver Anderson incident was not an isolated incident, however. Speaking about this theme in 2016, former world number one Novak Djokovic recounted an experience of being approached as a teenager in 2007.

In combatting this pressing issue, the Independent Review of Integrity in Tennis report, released today, stated: “The nature of the game lends itself to manipulation for betting purposes. The player incentive structure creates a fertile breeding ground for breaches of integrity."

Following the release of the multi-million euro report today, detailing a "tsunami" of betting-related corruption in recent years, the Guardian's Sean Ingle joined Joe on OTB to discuss what has proven to be the sport's most most worrying trend in recent years.

"Essentially, you have the higher level of the game, which is the ATP Tour and the Women's Tour, then beneath that is challenger level, then beneath that is the Future level and essentially Challenger and Future level are susceptible to this [match-fixing].

"So unless you are one of the very top players in the world you struggle to make a living and astonishingly, there are 14,000 people, the report says, that tried to make tennis their living.

Novak Djokovic has previously spoken out about the issue

"The bizarre thing is Sportradar, they not only publish live scores, they have an algorithm which changes betting odds in real time.

"So based on the starting price of the match, say I'm playing you in a game and the computer thinks we've got a 50/50 chance of winning, the computer will know if you're, say, 5-4 up in the second set what the odds should be but with every point those odds will change automatically.

"It doesn't take much if a player agrees that he's going to lose the fourth game of the second set when he's serving, and he's told someone in advance, it's very very easy to fix."

Surprisingly, in recent years, there has also been some tinkering with live scores by umpires of a handful of games, often delaying the updating games by up to a minute, giving gamblers a chance to pounce and bet in-play. 

"You know, you can basically win, you can let somebody know that [delaying the score] and then just delay typing your score into your console.

"If you're an umpire you end up winning and the corrupt gambler ends up winning."

However, as Ingle notes, this behaviour has been rectified somewhat with the introduction of live streams and nearby scoreboards to show every spectator the current state of play, thus discouraging the previous actions taken by some umpires.

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