At the start of 2016, young Australian tennis player Oliver Anderson was on a trajectory to stardom.
On Rod Laver arena, the then-teenager from Brisbane upset Uzbek Jurabek Karimov to win the Australian Open Junior Boys title, adding his name to past winners Nick Kyrgios, Alexander Zverev, Andy Roddick and Stefan Edberg.
A big career lay invitingly ahead for Anderson, as proven by the future stars who he’d finished above in the same tournament: Alex de Minaur, Stefano Tsitipas and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
But by the end of the same year, Anderson had already torpedoed his career. At a lower level ATP tournament in Tralagon in October, he agreed to lose the first set of a match he went on to win – and he was caught. Anderson was convicted of match-fixing in a Victorian court, and was later banned from tennis for 19 months by global watchdog, the Tennis Integrity Unit. At the age of 18, Anderson retired from tennis.
Anderson’s age shocked the tennis world but his crime did not. By 2018, tales of match fixing, mostly at lower levels of global tennis, were now sadly all-too common, and a story like Anderson’s was just more evidence of the worrying state of tennis’ integrity.
Indeed, Anderson wasn’t even the only player in the 2016 Australian Open Junior Boys field to choose the wrong road.
Oliver Anderson was Australian Open boys champion in 2016.Credit: Pat Scala
Egyptian Youssef Hossam, who was touted as the country’s next star after going down to de Minaur in the third-round, was banned for life in 2020 for multiple offences related to match-fixing.
What is match-fixing?
Match-fixing is a deliberate attempt to distort the outcome of a sporting contest- or elements within the contest – to benefit one or more parties.
Though it can be seen in efforts to benefit a sporting team’s future (like tanking games to finish lower and get better draft picks), match-fixing is mostly tied to gambling and has been traced back as far as chariot racing and the ancient Olympics in Greece.
Players or officials will commonly be approached by a third party to either lose a game or match, or influence small parts of the contest that gamblers can also bet on, known as “spot bets”. These can include things like the final points margin in a game, individual games and sets in tennis or how many no-balls are bowled in cricket.
The participants might bet themselves, or have others bet for them, but match-fixing routinely involves a gambler paying a sum of money to the athlete or official so they can guarantee a winning bet.
Among the more notorious incidents match-fixing are the Chicago White Sox scandal in baseball in 1919, and South African cricket captain Hanse Cronje’s ban for accepting money to throw matches in 2000. In 1998, Australian players Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined for for providing pitch and weather information to “John the bookie’.
Is match-fixing a problem in tennis?
It’s a huge problem, particularly at lower professional levels where betting is allowed but prize money is small and aspiring tennis players struggle to even cover their travel costs; making them vulnerable to offers of a quick payday. With 60,000 professional matches a year around the world, experts say match-fixing occurs in tennis more than any other sport.
Major names say they have been approached in the past to throw games. Novak Djokovic said he had been offered $200,000 to throw a game in 2006, and Thannasi Kokkinakis also said he’d ignored similar approaches from “randoms”.
Novak Djokovic said he was approached about match-fixing in 2006.Credit: Getty Images
Media reports have often exposed the alarming extent of the problems in tennis. In 2003, UK newspaper reports first revealed the widespread problem and an investigation in 2016 by the BBC and Buzzfeed said 16 of the world’s top 50 male players had been flagged to the sport’s watchdog, the Tennis Integrity Unit, as being potentially involved in match-fixing during the past decade.
It prompted an independent review by the International Tennis Federation, and after a two-year process that saw a panel interview over 3000 players, it found there was a “tsunami” of match-fixing and corruption at lower levels of professional tennis, on the ITF Futures and ATP Challengers Tours.
While match-fixing at the highest levels are relatively rare, the panel’s head referred to the lower levels of the sport as a “lamentably fertile breeding ground for breaches of integrity.”
Reform was recommended, including a winding back of the sale of match data that helped prompt a massive explosion of suspicious betting activity at lower level tournaments.
In 2023, the Washington Post revealed a match-fixing ring involving 181 players, run by Armenian organised crime. Players often only earned $2000-$4000 for throwing games or sets. The Belgian ring leader was imprisoned for five years.
What penalties are handed down?
The Tennis Integrity Unit, formed in 2008, was replaced by the International Tennis Integrity Agency in 2020.
Investigations into players and/or their camp are most commonly launched when bookmakers flag suspicious betting activity, such as an irregular sized bet on a specific outcome or patterns related to a player.
Bans handed down by the TIU and ITIA range from 1-2 years through to lifetime bans.
Have other Australians been banned?
The largest ban handed down to an Australian player for match-fixing is seven years, given to Nick Lindahl in 2017.
Nick Lindahl outside Burwood Local Court in 2017.Credit: Emma Partridge
Lindhal was arrested for offering a rival $500 to throw an ITF Futures tournament match in Toowoomba in 2013, and when it was rejected, Lindahl told friends he would tank the match. The friends bet on the rival to beat Lindahl, who ranked as low as 187 in the world. Given the unusual nature of the wagers, the bookmaker alerted authorities.
Lindahl, who escaped jail time, retired after the incident and refused to hand over his phone with the TIU investigation, which led to a hefty seven-year ban and $49,000 fine.
Fellow Australian players Brandon Walkin (six month suspension) and Isaac Frost (one year provisional suspension) were also disciplined by the TIU relating to the Toowoomba case.
