Tennis Nails Players For Past Gambling Violations
Tennis continues to ratchet down its harsh new rule system forbidding any gambling influences from interacting with personnel involved in matches. Frantisek Cermac and Michal Mertinak were placed on suspension Monday by the Association of Tennis Professionals.
Neither player was found to have gambled on his own matches, and no evidence of any attempt to influence the outcome of a match was found.
Still, tennis has been very paranoid about even the semblance of impropriety, and new rules, including the formation of a new investigative committee, were instituted right before the commencement of Wimbledon.
The shoddy performances by highly-ranked Nikolay Davydenko in matches with suspect betting patterns have led to the exposure of a corrupt underbelly in tennis, one in which match-influencing seemed almost a rule of thumb. Players should know to expect severe sentences for any violations.
Cermak was suspended for 10 weeks and fined $15,000. Mertinak was suspended for 2 weeks and fined $3000. Each was coming off a doubles championship from their respective tournaments Sunday.
The gambling findings were from the fall of 2006, showing the aggressiveness and thoroughness the new investigators will deploy in ending the tennis scandals.
It can be certain that any recent violations will be treated far more harshly.
