Match-fixing allegations: Karatsev and Basilashvili don't want to know anything
At the weekend, ZDF reported on possible match-fixing by Aslan Karatsev and Nikoloz Basilashvili. The two deny the allegations.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Jul 14, 2022, 03:31 pm
Karatsev and Basilashvili are said to have postponed matches , which ZDF reported at the weekend in the ZDF sports report .
Coach Yahor Yatsik, who had trained the two, is said to be behind it - he offered Karatsev and Basilashvili money for giving up individual games or sets. "He's been involved in betting fraud for years, working with people involved in match fixing in Russia and Eastern Europe," said a fellow coach. Yatsik is looking for players who would stumble and are therefore receptive to corresponding offers.
Match fixing in tennis is a big problem: The business with betting providers is a harmonious one, especially in tennis you can bet on many components, including individual games. Large betting providers are accordingly sensitized to conspicuously high stakes, for example on certain games within a set. If this game is also "playfully" conspicuous - due to many double faults and slight errors - it is a case for the ITIA (International Tennis Integrity Agency).
Most of the time, however, match fixing affects players beyond the top 100, i.e. those who respond financially to corresponding offers. However, Karatsev (ATP No. 40) and Basilashvili (ATP No. 25) are currently in the top 50.
Also a match at the ATP tournament in Stuttgart under suspicion
Karatsev is said to be involved in five games on ZDF, two of them as part of his collaboration with Yatsik; at a time before Karatsev had made his breakthrough. Both were interrogated by the French police in 2020 without consequences. Also this year at the ATP tournament in Stuttgart, a double by Karatsev is under suspicion. Basilashvili is under investigation for a doubles match at the 2021 Wimbledon tournament.
However, Karatsev and Basliashvili want nothing to do with it. According to ZDF, Karatsev has withdrawn an interview that has already been conducted , he now explains that he does not know what they are talking about. Basilashvili called the report "nonsense" and said that such things had often been written about him without his being convicted.