The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : I was asked to throw a match: Clement

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Wednesday, Oct 31, 2007
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I was asked to throw a match: Clement

London: French tennis player Arnaud Clement says he has refused money in the past to lose a match, but would not elaborate.

“It has happened to me, I won’t say where or under what circumstances,” Clement said after losing 6-4, 6-3 to Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in the first round of the Paris Masters on Monday.

“There was not a fraction of a second’s hesitation (to refuse the proposal).”

The 2001 Australian Open finalist feared revealing more about the offer could lead to reprisals against him.

“That’s why I don’t want to say too much about it. And it’s for that reason that I won’t mention either the place or how it happened,” Clement said.

Clement thinks lower-ranked players struggling to make an impact may be under more pressure to accept such offers.

“The problem is for a player slightly lower in classification (ranking) or in a certain amount of financial difficulty,” he said.

“Even if he refuses, this can play on his mind during the match. It can upset him. That’s not the case for me. To accept something like that is to betray the sport.”

Betting patterns

Clement’s confession followed the result of an investigation by online betting exchange Betfair into suspicious betting patterns on a match at last week’s ATP St. Petersburg Open.

Betfair voided bets on a match in August for the same reason but found nothing wrong with Dmitry Tursunov’s win over Boris Pashanski last week.

Tursunov, who ended up reaching the final, trailed Pashanski 6-4, 2-0 in the second round before advancing 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Despite the second-set deficit, there was still money being put on Tursunov to win.

Murdock said the investigation revealed that a specific bettor known to the company continued to back Tursunov. Betfair eventually settled all bets, in part because the unnamed bettor lost more than he won. — AP

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