Italians crack down on fixing scandal
Davis Cup entry Cecchinato hit hardest among three in sweeping investigation
The Federation of Italian Tennis barred Marco Cecchinato for 18 months and fined him $58,000 after he was accused of fixing two of his matches and using confidential information for gambling.
Cecchinato’s ban, the highest-profile case in recent memory, comes amid increased scrutiny of matchfixing and the perceived inadequacy of the International Tennis Federation’s integrity unit, the sport’s designated watchdog, which left the action against Cecchinato to another governing body.
The 23-year-old from Palermo, Italy, is ranked 143rd in the world and is the youngest Italian man in the ATP top 250. He played in the main draws of the most recent U.S. Open, Australian Open and French Open, and he was part of the Italian Davis Cup team that lost 3-1 to Argentina this month, although he did not play.
Cecchinato has been seen as one of his country’s few bright spots in a disappointing generation of men’s players. He has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyer, Antonino Reina, indicated to the Italian site Tennis Best that Cecchinato would appeal the decision in a federal court. If he loses the appeal, he cannot play again until January 2018.
Two others, Riccardo Accardi and Antonio Campo, were also barred and fined. Accardi was barred for one year and fined $29,000 (all dollars U.S.), and Campo was given a ban of four months and a fine of $14,500.
Many countries do not devote significant resources to policing matchfixing in tennis, but Italian authorities have been among the most effective in the world at exposing improprieties. Last year, two other Italian players, Daniele Bracciali and Potito Starace, were barred for life by the federation for match-fixing, but the federation’s appeals court cleared Starace and reduced Bracciali’s punishment to one year.
The Tennis Integrity Unit rarely reveals any details of its work, but the Italian federation released a 47-page report on the Cecchinato case.