Italian Players Suspended from Professional Competition Due to Match-Fixing Inquiry

Italian Players Suspended from Professional Competition Due to Match-Fixing Inquiry

  • Posted: Feb 14, 2015

braccialli Italian Players Suspended from Professional Competition Due to Match Fixing Inquiry

 

As reported by the Associated Press, tennis players Daniele Bracciali and Potito Starace have been suspended for 40 days by the Italian Tennis Federation due to an ongoing investigation for a match-fixing inquiry.

Bracciali and his occasional doubles partner Potito Starace were brought in on corruption accusations after intercepted Internet conversations showing they sold matches were released and printed in Italian media several months ago. Neither player has competed since doubles quarterfinals of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow when the intercepted conversations were published.

It appears that the incident stems from a July 2007 conversation between Bracciali and an accountant who was arrested in 2011, where the Italian allegedly planned to arrange a match in Rhode Island against Scoville Jenkins – a match that Jenkins eventually won 6-2, 6-1.

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Italian investigator Roberto Di Martino later told The Associated Press that Bracciali “admitted a few things and he denied a few things”

This is far from the first case of match fixing in tennis. Prior this this particular incident, lifetime bans were dealt to Daniel Koellerer (2011), David Savic (2012), and Andrey Kumantsov (2014). Spain’s Guillermo Olaso has been banned from tennis competition for five years after he was found guilty of fixing a match back in 2010.