After four months of investigation by the ESPN Enterprise Unit,
Sunday’s Outside the Lines (9:30 a.m. ET, ESPN; noon ET ESPNEWS)
will show how a suspicious betting pattern on an August 2007 match
in an obscure Sopot, Poland tournament prompted the ATP to launch an
investigation amid pervasive reports of widespread gambling in the
sport.
The British gambling website Betfair, which handled more than $7
million in wagers on the match between No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko of
Russia and No. 87 Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina, noticed
that despite easily winning the first set against his little-known
opponent, Davydenko became a bigger and bigger underdog. When
Davydenko retired early in the third set after receiving treatment
for his foot, Betfair took the unprecedented step of voiding all
bets and contacted the ATP.
In addition to extensive interviews, ESPN has obtained
never-before-released details of the wagering on the match, which,
until now, were known only to those close to the ATP investigation.
Correspondent John Barr details how the suspect betting unfolded and
interviews an accomplished gambler who says he bet on the match and
is certain that the fix was in that day in Poland
ESPN The Magazine senior writer Shaun Assael obtained a
never-before-published internal ATP email that details the
suspicious betting activities of Martin Fuhrer, a gambler accused of
knowing the outcome of some matches in advance. Assael traveled to
Vienna to interview Fuhrer, who acknowledged having friendly
associations with some of the players on whom he has won money. In
2003, Fuhrer had a 100-percent win record on Irakli Labadze of
Georgia to lose with one betting website, documents say. In one of
those matches, Labadze was fined $7,500 for showing "a lack of
effort."
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