Tennis is a simple sport; no giant playbooks, no 53-man rosters, no subjective officiating. But handicappers are more than aware about the darker side of tennis.

Four years ago, online gamblers had a less peaceful summer than usual. 2000 Olympic gold medallist Yevgeny Kafelnikov faced Fernando Vicente at the Lyon Grand Prix; betting on that matchup was suspended after heavy action came in on Vicente. The low-ranked Spaniard won in straight sets.

Here we are again. The No. 4 player on the men’s circuit, Nikolay Davydenko, is under scrutiny after withdrawing from last month’s Poland Open matchup against Martin Vassallo Arguello. Davydenko won the first set 6-2; Betfair says an unusual amount of money came in at that point for the Russian to lose. Arguello won the second set 6-3, then Davydenko withdrew while leading 2-1 in the third.

Betfair voided all the wagers on that matchup – reportedly over US$6.8 million. Stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Tennis Betting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.