Date:14/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/14/stories/2007111461992300.htm

Sport

Sport confronted with more real inquiries

Tennis's dilemma is that it is a game simple to fix, writes Rohit Brijnath

Tennis’s dilemma is that it is a game simple to fix, writes Rohit Brijnath

The only recent investigations that mattered in tennis were why Rafael Nadal was unable to translate spring form into autumn and when Serena Williams was going to be introduced to grace. Now, the sport is confronted with more real, and ruder, inquiries. Did Martina Hingis snort cocaine? Was Tommy Haas poisoned? And how deep does match-fixing go? A rather genteel pursuit is hogging the headlines and only PR men in shiny suits, who believe any publicity is a prayer answered, are grinning.

Not well treated

It is ironic that a man of remarkable anonymity is at the centre of tennis’ attention. Nikolay Davydenko is the least known fourth-best player tennis has ever had, for sadly neither his intriguing tired-vodka-salesman face nor his running-man game stamped itself on the memory. An inquiry is on after irregular gambling patterns were noticed during a match Davydenko was part of, but the treatment of the Russian, whatever his sins may be proved to be, has been less than wholesome.

First an umpire fined him for lack of effort during the St. Petersburg Open, an astonishing and arbitrary call. Accusing a player of half-heartedness is dangerous in a sport where it is hard to distinguish between the real error and the fake. Then, after serving a slew of double faults in France, another umpire felt the need to tell Davydenko: “If you serve like me, you put it in the box. That’s it.”

It was an extraordinarily impertinent remark from an umpire to a player, and irrespective of how Davydenko is viewed in the locker room, players should have condemned the incident. Instead there has been uneasy silence.

Certainly no umpire would have dared address a more popular player similarly (Lleyton Hewitt might have responded with an uppercut); worse, it appeared Davydenko had become fair game.

Fixing is hardly foreign to sport, for horses have been pulled and referees bribed since Nero fiddled his way to first place in a chariot race he never even finished in the ancient Olympics. Mobsters in shiny suits have urged boxers to fall to phantom punches, and as Marlon Brando, forced to throw a fight, unforgettably told Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront in 1954: “I coulda been a contender. I could have been somebody, instead of a bum”.

No flawless sport

Tennis understandably is struggling with the idea of players being asked to throw matches, for all sports believe they are clean, of drugs and fixing, yet there is no flawless sport because there is no flawless man. Already a fellow, Alessio Di Mauro, has been banned, but he, poor fellow, never bet on his own matches nor influenced the result of the others.

Tennis’s dilemma is that it is a game simple to fix because it is not hard to manufacture a mistake and make it appear normal. By its very nature, so much of sport is open to interpretation. Three successive double faults can be translated in numerous ways: fatigue, wind, errant ball toss or the sheer unpredictability of sport. A while ago, Anna Kournikova reportedly served 182 double faults in 10 matches and the only investigations launched were into her technique.

Only option

The game’s only option is to police itself rigorously, to keep unessential members of entourages out of locker rooms, to look for patterns of suspicious activity and for players to speak out. Athletes are often bound by some dubious honour code where they don’t squeal on each other, but silence only leads to police lurking in tournament corridors.

Roger Federer is probably right in stating that fixing is more a temptation for the lower ranks, yet cricket and football stand as powerful reminders that even the successful athlete falls to greed. Tennis must be unbending in its treatment of fixers, for authenticity is the essence of competitive sport.

When a player double faults at matchpoint, we want to groan at his errant timing and argue if he qualifies as a choker, not wonder if it was a fix. Presumably detectives will report soon on where tennis is most vulnerable. Then we can return to our own investigations. Like discovering if three losses in a month is proof finally of Swiss mortality.