Tennis was faced with accusations of match fixing for years: through the infamous match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello in 2007 that first introduced much of this public to questions concerning the integrity of matches in a few smaller tournaments to suspensions levied against two players earlier this year, here always generally seems to be something lurking underneath the sport’s surface.

Those concerns were aired once more this week in an account by The Daily Beast, which once again attempted to delve through the info out here about tennis and figure out simply how much of a challenge match fixing is for the game.

One 2014 study cited in that story estimated that one percent of all tournament that is first-round might be fixed, which will mean more than 20 matches per year were influenced by gamblers; other estimates and guesses have suggested that numerous matches each week could be fixed, though that’s nevertheless a very tiny percentage of all professional tennis matches.

Low Pay Leads to Temptation for Lower-Ranked Players

What makes tennis therefore vulnerable to match fixing?

There are a mixture of factors, a lot of which help explain why the issue seems most prominent during the lower levels regarding the expert ranks.

First, there’s the most obvious fact that tennis (at least in singles play) is a sport that is individual.

There is certainly only one individual that needs to be bribed to get them to throw a match (the same issue leading many to fear widespread integrity issues in boxing and other combat sports), and there are no teammates or substitutes to pick the slack up for a player who is struggling.

Having said that, nobody is accusing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal of fixing matches at Wimbledon.

For one, there is the fact why these matches have a powerful quantity of scrutiny if it could be done at all on them; perhaps even more importantly, though, star tennis players are extremely well compensated, meaning it would cost anyone attempting to fix a match at that level an exorbitant amount of money.

That isn’t to say that nobody attempts. Even Novak Djokovic has told an account of being provided $100,000 to fix a match back in 2006.

But players on the planet 7 oz bonus code Challenger Tour or other low-ranked competitors aren’t making nearly that much money, and may even lose cash in a given tournament after travel and mentoring expenses are taken into account.

Which makes them targets that are prime gamblers trying to fix a match.

Spot Betting Allows Repairing Without Impacting Match Result

Another issue is the very fact that gamblers do not even have to repair a match that is entire find ways to benefit.

Because many gambling web sites and bookmakers offer betting on sets or games that are even individual players can reach agreements to allow certain activities to take place during the right times to satisfy gamblers while still playing to win overall.

‘One particular fix that is common be to split the first two sets to a predetermined script, then have fun with the 3rd set fairly to figure out which player advances,’ activities modeler Ian Dorward told Slate earlier this 12 months.

The Tennis Integrity product is the physical body tasked with rooting out such dilemmas, and they have often made examples of players. In March, Elie Rousset and Walkter Trusendi each received six-month suspensions and fines for violations of anti-corruption rules, though maybe not for match-fixing.

But no matter what the Integrity Unit does, it’s unlikely in order to change the tradition which allows lower-ranked players to be incentivized to aid gamblers who would like to make bets that are sure.

That would need a change that is complete how compensation works up and down the different amounts of professional tennis, something which will most likely not take place any moment soon.