MELBOURNE — Players involved in a mixed doubles match at the Australian Open said Monday they were interviewed by the Tennis Integrity Unit after a newspaper reported it had attracted suspicious betting patterns.
According to The New York Times report, a gambling website said it had received an unusual spike in bets for Lukasz Kubot and Andrea Hlavackova to beat David Marrero and Lara Arruabarrena, causing it to suspend betting before the teams played Sunday.
All players identified in the newspaper report rejected any possibility of fixing in the match, which was won by Kubot and Hlavackova 6-0, 6-3.
Kubot said Monday that the TIU had asked him and Hlavackova questions about the match, without offering any more details. He added, though, that he didn’t notice anything unusual on the court, saying “we give 100 percent of that match” and he believed his opponents “were trying 100 percent.”
“It’s not very comfortable to think that we didn’t win the match on our terms,” Hlavackova said. “We played our best, we did very well and we won. So it’s a bit not comfortable to be questioned if someone else was not playing 100 percent or something.”
Marrero and Arruabarrena rejected the allegations in an interview with the Times, with Marrero citing a knee injury for his team’s poor play. They were not available for comment Monday.
The sport has been under intense scrutiny in the wake of reports published by BBC and BuzzFeed News last Monday saying tennis authorities have ignored widespread evidence of match-fixing involving 16 players who had been ranked in the top 50 over the past decade. The media outlets didn’t name any players, but said half of them would be competing at the Australian Open.
The latest report came as a former top-200 tennis player from Australia, Nick Lindahl, pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to a match-fixing charge after prosecutors say he informed two people he would intentionally lose a match at a lower-tier tournament in 2013 so they could bet against him.
A transcript of telephone calls intercepted by police after the match and read in court appeared to show Lindahl coaching an associate on how to hide evidence from investigators and admitting to doing the same himself.
“Just get rid of it ... just get rid of everything,” Lindahl said in the transcript, which was read by Prosecutor Kate Young.
Lindahl, who was arrested a year ago, faces a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment on the charge to which he pleaded guilty and will be sentenced on April 15.
His lawyer, Troy Edwards, said the timing of the case coming to court amid a blaze of publicity about suspected match fixing and the Australian Open tournament was unfortunate. — Agencies
