The Paris public prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday that it had opened an investigation for “organized gang fraud” and “active and passive sports corruption” for suspicion of a match-fixing at Roland Garros, a practice which has already recently tarnished the reputation of tennis.
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According to the German newspaper Die Welt and the sports daily L’Équipe, the suspicious encounter pitted the Romanian pair of Andreea Mitu and Patricia Maria Tig against the Russian-American duo Yana Sizikova and Madison Brengle on September 30, in the first round of the doubles tournament of the Parisian meeting.
“It’s a first round match with players not very well known”, simply confirmed to AFP a source within the National Games Authority (ANJ), which regulates games, horse racing and betting in France. sportsmen. The investigation was opened on October 1.
The four players who took part in this meeting do not occupy the first ranks of the WTA world ranking in singles: Tig is ranked 59th, Mitu 512th, Brengle 78th and Sizikova 652nd.
The suspicions would fall particularly on the fifth game of the second set, a shutout won by the Romanian duo after two gross double faults by the Russian Sizikova. The Romanians won in two sets 7-6, 6-4.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the bets made on this meeting represent “obviously large sums, abnormally high” of the order of “several tens of thousands of euros”.
The ANJ did not detect any anomaly on the bets made “on the French market”, explains the source within it. “They must have been afraid to bet in France. They tried to disseminate the bets on other markets, but the associations of operators know how to additions ”.
“We received information through several channels. Both private operators, an alert from GLMS (Global Lottery Monitoring System) and also from the Copenhagen group (which brings together 33 platforms to fight against sports manipulation in the world) ”, the same source continues.
Police officers from the Central Service for Races and Games (SCCJ) were responsible for the investigations, said the Paris prosecutor’s office.
“It means that these warning systems are working,” said the Director General of the French Tennis Federation (FFT), Jean-François Vilotte, on Tuesday. “It’s satisfying. It’s good that everyone is doing their part in terms of information exchange. We, as tournament organizers, can only be congratulated, ”said Mr. Vilotte.
Tennis is occasionally struck by suspicion of match-fixing, which most often concerns second or third category professional tournaments.
On September 27, two players of Kyrgyz and Uzbek nationalities were thus indicted and placed under judicial supervision in the Val-d’Oise, as part of an investigation opened by the Pontoise public prosecutor’s office after a tournament in Gonesse in March.
The most resounding investigation, in France, was opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) in July 2019 for sports corruption, criminal conspiracy and laundering of organized gang corruption, and could have European ramifications.
It followed a vast investigation launched in Belgium which, according to the Belgian public prosecutor’s office, affected at least seven countries (Bulgaria, Slovakia, Germany, the Netherlands, France, United States and Belgium) and concerned “a group very structured from Eastern Europe, which operates from Belgium and specializes in tennis matches ”.
At the head of this alleged network would appear a certain Grigor S., presented as a 28-year-old Belgian of Armenian origin nicknamed the “Maestro”.
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