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 DAVYDENKO ...Was his "injury" a fraud? |
Davydenko vs. Arguello
Gets ESPN’s Attention
of TheColumnists.com
Not enough has been made about a suspicious tennis match last year that cries “fix.” That is why the ESPN people deserve acclaim for their extensive reporting on TV and the Internet last week and in the current ESPN Magazine about the notorious match that cries out for more attention than it has received in the public prints.
This was an obscure match played in Sopot, Poland, Aug. 2, last year. Nikolay Davydenko, the No. 4-seeded player from Russia, played the No. 87-seeded Vassalo Arguello of Argentina. By any analysis Davydenko would be regarded as the big favorite to win the match. When he won the first set, he figured to be an even bigger favorite.
Yet betting on the underdog increased as the match went on. Incredibly, after Davydenko won the first set, 6-2, money continued to come into a big betting exchange, not on Davydenko, but on the underdog, Arguello.
Arguello won the second set, 6-3. The match ended with a victory for Arguello, who was leading 2-1 in the third set when Davydenko retired from the match claiming an injury, a stress fracture in his left foot.
But a week later Davydenko played in an event in Canada and beat two players ranked in the top 30. Two weeks later he was healthy enough to make it to the semi-finals of the tough U.S. Open before he lost to Roger Federer.
ESPN reporters John Barr and Shaun Assael and producers William Weinbaum and Evan Kanew put together convincing reports detailing the suspicious betting patterns on the match that would persuade even Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm that the fix was in.
ESPN’s report detailed the operations of the British company Betfair which is known in the gambling industry as an exchange. ESPN explained, “Betfair represents a marriage of Internet sports betting and day trading. Unlike conventional gambling sites where bookmakers set the odds, Betfair allows the bettors to set their own odds and bet at any point during play. The company simply matches up gamblers who agree to take opposite sides of bets.”
Even before play started in Poland, Betfair’s customers raised suspicions. Betfair managing director Mark Davies said, “We’ve got 40 to 50.000 pairs of eyes on the site at any given time and everybody was saying, ‘There’s something wrong here’…I think it’s clear that somebody knew something. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”
ESPN obtained a confidential report to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the ruling body of the sport, on the betting patterns at Betfair. The report says that before the match one Russian account bet $540,942 on the underdog Arguello. Then, just 15 minutes into the first set, with Davydenko leading, 2-1, the account added to its bet on Arguello. And 24 minutes into the second set, another Russian account wagered $368,036 on Arguello.
Altogether three Russian-based accounts risked a total of more than $1.1 million on No. 87 to beat No. 4. The ATP report says, “This suggests an account holder was aware that the match would not be played to conclusion.” And, of course, it wasn’t. And, in an unprecedented move Betfair suspended all bets on the match; it didn’t pay off any winners.
Betting is legal in Great Britain. Tennis ranks third in betting volume behind horse racing and soccer. In today’s world of big time athletes, it is difficult to fix an event. Because the athletes are paid such huge salaries, it would be difficult to pay them enough to make it worthwhile to fix a match at the risk of jeopardizing a lucrative career. That is why fixers in the United States generally target major college athletes who are already exploited by the schools that employ them.
An obscure match between two players who are not exactly household names represents a choice opportunity for a fix. The outrageous betting patterns, Davydenko’s lame injury excuse and admissions by other players that they have been approached by gamblers have raised red flags of suspicion.
Davydenko told the ESPN people that he has never been approached to fix a tennis match. “I don’t know how to throw a match. If you are in pain and can’t play, you withdraw,” he said.
Is there enough smoke here for the ATP to act against Davydenko? ATP official Etienne de Villiers says, “A player, whether he is guilty or not, deserves due process. He deserves to live by something we all live by, which is, we are innocent until we are proven guilty.”
Davydenko says that beyond his family the only person he told about his sore foot before he played Arguello was ATP trainer Christiaan Swier. Davydenko’s lawyer questioned whether the trainer somehow tipped gamblers to the injury. The trainer responded that “I didn’t talk to anybody…but the training room is not a closed environment.”
ATP investigators have interviewed Davydenko, his wife, his brother, who is also his coach, his opponent, Arguello and the Betfair people.
ESPN reports that Davydenko is angry that the ATP investigation has taken so long. The ATP responds that though Davydenko released his personal phone records to investigators, the outcome of the investigation has been delayed by his refusal to turn over the phone records of his wife and brother.
If tennis were as big a deal as baseball in this country, the Davydenko case might even give the Roger Clemens saga a run for media attention.
©2008 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia. This column first posted Feb. 25, 2008.
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