McEnroe rats out mob

Thanks, da.

I'll take it as a backhand compliment.

 

People have talked about players dumping matches in the 70s and 80s - tanking. Sometimes it was a player who was tired and wanted to get out. There was talk about exhibitions where players would get really good money. Tennis would be a fairly easy sport to fix, and almost perfect because it is head-to-head competition. Add to the fact that there a number of Russian women among the top players and the fact that fear of Russian gangsters is a fear of Russian professional athletes - some NHL players have talked about this - and you have a situation where this is a real possibility.

 

A few years ago in my town, the feds dug up a missing Russian boxer buried in someone's backyard. Later, a Russian emigre had his Hummer torched by loansharks and his kids' school had to be locked down.

 

exactly, players have been doign that tanking thing for years.
"Oh, I just had a bad day."
How to disprove?

 

Players will tank games to conserve energy for the deciding set. I wonder how that affects the spread.

 

Explain something to me about the controversial Davydenko match.

He retired, so all bets were voided.

If he "had" to lose for purposes of wagering . . . the Russian mafia (or whoever) did not get the winning wager it sought.

So if he was guilty, why didn't Davydenko finish the match so the wager would be official?

 

The Betfair bets weren't voided because Davydenko retired. They were voided because there were "suspicious betting patterns", i.e., if I remember correctly, Davydenko's opponent lost the first set yet the number of wagers on him to still win the match kept going up and up, setting off alarm bells.

McEnroe isn't saying anything new. The most corrupt tournaments as far as that stuff goes happen to be in Russia, particularly the one in St. Petersberg where Novak Djokovic apparently got a call last year, just prior to the event, asking him to "take it easy". He decided not to go at all.

Most of the players suspected seem to be either Italian, or Russian. So it's pretty easy for anyone, including McEnroe, to do that math.

 

Will Johnny Mac discover a horse's head in his bed one morning?