The world of tennis was hit by shockwaves when an organised gambling syndicate suspected of fixing hundreds of matches and paying off around 180 players from around Europe was uncovered in January 2019.
Grigor Sargsyan, a 28-year-old Armenian man known as 'the Maestro', was thought to be the ringleader of a massive match-fixing scheme, organised via encrypted messaging, involving dozens of low-ranked players in small tournaments with little prize money.
“The impression we’re getting is that it is very commonplace,” one official told The Associated Press as up to 180 players were suspected of having worked with the syndicate, fixing matches, sets or games in exchange for payments of 500 to 3,000 euros ($570 to $3,400).
Chris Kronow Rasmussen, Associate Professor of Sports Betting Integrity at the University of New Haven, told Flashscore that we have probably only scratched the surface when it comes to uncovering the scale of match-fixing for players ranked below 200 in the world.
“It is, of course, difficult to say how big the problem is, but I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.
"The Sargsyan case gives an indication of how big the problem can actually be. He had about 180 players in his portfolio, and there are probably about 1500 players in the world rankings, so that adds up to a very high percentage of potentially fixed matches”, said Kronow Rasmussen.
Kronow underlines that WTA, ATP and ITF are partly responsible for having created the problem around match-fixing because prize money for many lower-ranked players doesn’t even begin to cover the massive expenses for coaching, training, food, travel and accommodation.
“For players ranked from No. 200 to No. 1000 in the world, there is a better incentive to lose matches on purpose and fix matches than to do their best to win matches.
"You should scrap all the tournaments where the prize money is less than $50,000 because financially it is not worth it for the players to participate, even if they end up winning the tournament, and that is a grotesque situation. It's really a big mess”, says Kronow Rasmussen.
Every tournament has a set amount of prize money, which varies dramatically depending on the type of event and while a ticket for the first round of a Grand Slam tournament (players who make it to the first round of Wimbledon's main singles draw take home £60,000) can cover all expenses for a whole year, paychecks and ranking points available continue to decrease for lower levels of tournaments.
As such, the range of pay on the ITF Women's Tour ranges from $50 (first round of qualifying at a W25) to $15,239 for a winner at a W100 tournament.
Jamie Loeb, who is currently ranked 305 on the women’s WTA Tour, also says that prize money distinctions are often misleading.
"People think if you win a $25,000 tournament, that's what you get, but I'm like, 'The joke is on you'. That amount is split up amongst everybody, plus taxes, plus expenses, so most of the time you're losing money at those tournaments, even if you win”, said Loeb to ESPN.
With financial insecurity constantly hovering like a black cloud over the lives of young tennis players struggling to make ends meet, it is not surprising that some players are tempted to cut corners if they are asked to fix matches by shady businessmen, according to Frederik Lochte Nielsen, former winner of the Wimbledon doubles tournament and current Danish Davis Cup captain.
“There is no doubt that, when you have a system that is organised like it is today, where people play for peanuts and someone comes and asks if you want $10,000 to lose the first set, then there are many who are tempted, which you can also see because there are many who get caught,” Lochte Nielsen tells Flashscore.
“Tennis is an incredibly attractive sport to bet on because there are matches all year round and you make bets per point, so I think that will always be a huge problem”, adds Lochte Nielsen who has previously admitted that he was offered money to lose on purpose but immediately chose to turn it down.
The Tennis Integrity Unit was set up in 2008 to combat match-fixing in tennis but was subsequently replaced by the International Tennis Integrity Agency in 2020. It had the ability to impose fines and sanctions, and ban players, umpires, and other tennis officials from participating in tournaments. Still, there is evidence that the system was far from effective, as a report in 2018 uncovered a "tsunami of corruption in lower-level tennis."
The report pointed out that lower-level tennis had turned into a fertile breeding ground for match-fixing due to the number of players struggling to make a living, few people watching the matches in person, and the ITF's decision to sell official live scoring data in 2012. Seven years later, nothing has changed, says Kronow Rasmussen.
"A number of organisations pat themselves on the back, when they find a tennis player who has cheated, but they usually never find the perpetrators and it would be better if athletes were trained not to accept money, or prize money was offered at a size that enabled players to live a decent life," adds Kronow Rasmussen, who underlines that he doesn't think any tennis player enjoys cheating.
"I think 70% of tennis players do it out of necessity rather than because they think it's fun to cheat. Nobody thinks it's cool to lose on purpose.
"But if you get 5000 euros, you might look through it because the family needs to have food on the table," concludes Kronow Rasmussen.