There's been a lot of bad press lately for major American pro sports and cycling, but at least tennis seemed to be doing ok.That is until Friday.
Officials yesterday began investigating suspicious betting patterns on a Thursday match in which No. 4-ranked Nikolay Davydenko of Russia retired with an injury against No. 87-ranked Martin Arguello of Argentina at an ATP tournament in Poland.
The British online gambling company Betfair voided all bets Friday placed on Thursday's second-round match at the Prokom Open in Sopot.
Betfair said it received about $7 million in bets on the match, which is 10 times the usual amount, and most of the money was on Arguello to win, even after Davydenko won the first set 6-2.
Arguello went on to win the second set 6-3 and was up 2-1 in the third set when Davydenko withdrew after he said he aggravated a left foot injury.
"Normally I try to fight to the end but it was very painful and I may have done even more damage by trying to finish the match," Davydenko said Thursday after the match. "Since the beginning of Monday I've had a problem with my left toes. Today that became a problem with my foot."
He was also backed up Arguello.
"I saw Davydenko playing very well the first set, and I saw also that he had problems with his feet, and that was true, he was not inventing that, so it's difficult to suspect him," Arguello said.
It may be impossible to tell if Davydenko was taking a dive or not, since it was known before the match that he would be playing with an injury. He's also lost his last three first round matches in tournaments and there were apparently no patterns of irregular betting in any of those matches. Those losses seem to be due to the lingering injury issues. So either Davydenko's been throwing matches at an extraordinary pace, or more likely, people have just keyed in to his worsening condition.
Regardless of the pending situation, considering all the bad press that's going on in sports right now this was about the last thing tennis needed.
-WCK
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