By DPA
London : A cricket crime fighter and a horse racing investigator will headline the attempt of the Association of Tennis Professional (ATP) to clear tennis of illegal betting, the men’s sanctioning body confirmed Tuesday.
The pair, both former London policemen, will work with governing bodies of the game including the International Tennis Federation as the sport tries to clean up any lingering odour of illegal betting or match fixing by players or outsiders.
“Integrity of competition is the essence of all sport,” said ATP boss Etienne de Villiers. “That is why we remain fully committed to meeting the global challenge posed by gambling face on.
“We have stringent procedures and sanctions in place to deal with any suspected corruption and have shown we will act decisively where our integrity rules are broken.
“By harnessing the scale and resources of the entire sport to create a Tennis Integrity Unit we will be taking a bold and significant step in ensuring the future integrity of our sport.
“We are delighted that in Jeff Rees and Ben Gunn we have retained two of the world’s leading sports integrity experts to help us realise that objective.”
Rees handles the anti-corruption unit for the International Cricket Council, while Gunn patrols betting in British turf racing.
The pair will report to the ATP, ITF, women’s WTA and the four Grand Slam events, which begin with the Australian Open on Monday.
Men’s tennis has been under pressure since last summer when suspected illegal betting patterns were detected during a match which was lost under odd circumstances in Poland by world number four Nikolay Davydenko.
The ATP announced a get-tough policy and responded by handing down bans to three Italian players for betting on matches online – none of them their own.
Potito Starace, Alessio Di Mauro and Daniele Bracciali are currently serving bans of six weeks, nine months and three months respectively.
On Tuesday, former ATP player council president Ivan Ljubic said that the bans applied may have been over the top.
“What they did was stupid, but to be suspended nine months because you put a few Euros on a match on the other side of the world is a bit too aggressive.
“But those are the rules. The ATP is probably trying to show younger players that they have to follow the rules.
“I think they paid too high a price, it was too heavy. But they didn’t follow the rules and that’s what they got.”
The Australian Open has threatened jail terms for offenders at their event and has slapped a ban on laptop computers courtside.