Miscellaneous News from the world of tennis by the Tennis Frontier.
Six men from Victoria, Australia, have been arrested in a police sting against match-fixing.
The investigation leading to the arrests was carried out by the Australian specialist Purana Task Force, following allegations that matches were predetermined by one or more of the players. All six have been arrested in relation to offences under the Crimes Amendment Act relating to sporting integrity.
Tennis Australia confirmed that they are working with the police.
The International Tennis Hall of Fame inducted its “Class of 2014” at the annual Newport Tennis Championships. The class of 2014 comprised of the following figures from the sport:
Nick Bollettieri (Contributor)
Lindsay Davenport (Recent Player)
Jane Brown Grimes (Contributor)
John Barrett (Contributor)
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Cover Photo: WorldIslandInfo.com (Creative Commons license)
On this day last year, 14 April, 2013, Tennis Frontier first hung out its shingle. We thought we’d wish ourselves a happy anniversary, and remind you how far we’ve come in just one year.
Founding partners Owen Gigg, Trent Curtis, and Susan DePalma started the site as a way to keep a wandering tennis community together. In our maiden year, while we have been steadily adding to our growing list of Discussion Forum members, we have also become a lot more.
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+ social media channels have all been launched. Tennis Frontier now has two to three times as many Twitter followers as Forum members. We’re delighted that not only have we maintained such a loyal following amongst old friends, but have also added so many new voices to the conversation.
According to Google Analytics, Tennis Frontier currently gets between 15,000 – 25,000 unique visitors a month, and between 130,000 and 200,000 page views — noteworthy growth since last April.
“Down The T”, one of our trademark blogs, has featured exclusive interviews with Major winners Johan Kriek and Michael Chang, plus Wimbledon finalist Chris Lewis. Participants have also included Andy Murray’s former coach, Ben Saunders, and the recently-retired Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian.
Coming soon will be another exclusive interview: tennis legend Margaret Court, winner of a record 24 singles Majors.
In order to provide additional original content, we have also been adding to our blog roll.
Our thanks to bloggers (in alphabetical order): Brian Canever, Warren Casreo, Colin Chambers, Samer Kadi, Johan Kriek, Arienna Lee, Chris Lewis, Scoop Malinowski, John Masters, Jonathan Northrop, and Jesse Pentecost.
We are also grateful to those who have contributed through their efforts as moderators.
We’ve surprised even ourselves by how far we’ve come in just one year, but we’re even more excited about what the coming year will bring.
Thank you for helping to make Tennis Frontier such a success.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Alize Cornet clinched a maiden Hopman Cup triumph for France as they prevailed over the Polish pair Grzegorz Panfil and Agnieszka Radwanska 2-1 in a titanic tussle.
The final at Perth Arena lasted until the early hours of Sunday evening with France finally prevailing in the mixed doubles 6-0, 6-2.
In the earlier matches, Tsonga defeated Panfil 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, and Radwanska defeated Cornet 6-3, 6-7 (9-7), 6-2.
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Cover Photo: Yann Caradec, Creative Commons License
A modern day Battle of the Sexes clash between Serena Williams and Andy Murray looks like it may come to fruition after both players expressed interest in playing a match that was first mooted by a follower of the Scotsman on Twitter.
“I’d be up for it, why not?” was Murray’s response to the tweet. Serena, the ladies #1, has also made positive comments about the proposed meet. “That would be fun. I doubt I’d win a point, but that would be fun.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Serena has played an exhibition against a male professional. She lost 6-1 in a challenge set to the German Karsten Braasch. However, she was only 16 years old at the time.
There have been a number of challenge matches between the sexes, perhaps the most famous being 55-year-old Bobby Riggs challenging Margaret Court and Billie Jean King to matches. He split the series, losing to King but defeating Court.
In 1992, Jimmy Connors defeated Martina Navratilova in a challenge match. In his recent book, Connors let slip he had one million dollars riding on a successful win.
If the match does happen, Murray has suggested Las Vegas as an appropriate venue.
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Britain’s Andy Murray has labelled the court ruling by Madrid judge Julia Santamaria, “Beyond a joke” following the trial of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes. Fuentes was in the dock after a seven year sports doping investigation known as “Operation Puerto”.
The Spanish sports medicine doctor was handed a suspended one-year jail term and banned from practising sports medicine for four years. The offences relate blood doping athletes for performance enhancement. Doping in sports was not a crime in Spain at the time of the investigation, so Fuentes was arrested and charged for offences relating to public health.
He will not spend any time behind bars as Spanish law dictates that if the guilty party has no previous convictions then any sentence of less than two years will be commuted. The court also sentenced former cycling team official Ignacio Labarta to four months in jail, and acquitted three others, including Fuentes’s sister Yolanda.
A controversial element of the case revolved around an initial ruling that Fuentes did not need to name any of his clients outside of the sport of cycling, despite having confirmed that athletes from football, boxing, track and field and tennis were also members of his clientele. Judge Santamaria resisted pressure throughout the trial to provide the names of non-cycling athletes implicated in the scandal.
Despite repeated requests from WADA (the world anti-doping body) for access to the blood bags, Santamaria ordered that the bags and any other evidence including all computers used in the investigation be destroyed.
Murray used Twitter to express his astonishment at the ruling – “The Biggest cover up in sporting history?”, clearly bemused that all the evidence must be destroyed without further investigation. “Why would the court order blood bags to be destroyed?”
Andy Parkinson, chief executive of UK Anti-Doping also slammed the decision by the spanish judge: ‘We are disappointed. Dr Fuentes has admitted to having been involved in multiple prohibited doping activities, and linked with multiple unnamed athletes.
‘It therefore cannot be right that these names will remain unknown and no immediate action can be taken.’
It would seem for now that the guilty will escape and the innocent will be tarred with suspicion.
Click here to discuss this and more with fellow tennis fans on our discussion boards.
The All England Club has announced a significant increase in prize money for the Wimbledon Championships 2013.
Players can look forward to a hike of 40%,making Wimbledon the most lucrative of all the four major championships.
The tournamount winners will each receive £1.6 million (a jump from £1.15 million in 2012) and the overall price fund has increased by £6.5 million to a bumper £22.6 million booty.
In percentage terms, the biggest increases are focused on players who lose either in qualifiers or the early rounds of the tournament. Doubles players also enjoy a 22% increase in their share of the loot.
The historic club also announced plans to install a roof over the second showcourt. Court No. 1 will enjoy a retractable roof by the 2019 tournament.
Discuss this and more with fellow tennis fans in our community forums.