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1/15/08 1:55 AM |
James Blake has called for crushing penalties to drive any player caught betting on his own matches out of the game for life.
But he also draws the line at the heavy crackdowns applied to a trio of Italian who have been suspended for various months after making small punts on other contests, most played halfway around the world. Alessio di Mauro is out for nine months while compatriots Daniele Bracciali got three months and Potito Starace six weeks for infractions as the ATP tackles the corruption issue.
“If someone was betting on their own matches, I would not be opposed to a lifetime ban,” said the vice-president of the ATP player council. Every situation may be different, so we have to have a tribunal … anything like that where it's having an effect on matches, that's something that could deserve a lifetime ban.
“If players are betting on their own matches, or even on tournaments that they're at, then that's something we need to take extremely seriously. And that's where the strict punishments should come in.”
Most of the best made by the Italians were made several seasons ago, well in the past and before strict anti-punting rules were laid down in 2007 by the ATP after the Nikolay Davydenko Sopot incident exploded into prominence.
“It's (the suspensions) been extremely harsh for what guys have done four or five years ago. The danger is if these guys start doing it now. If it's five years ago, you know, we hope they've learned and would never do it again. But to punish them so severely looks like they might be just looking to make an example of someone.
”We don't want to get in to the situation of boxing (which) seems almost impossible to figure out if it was real or not. As far as I know tennis is clean. I just can't see any of those guys that I've known being able to denigrate our sport that way. Maybe I'm naive and bright-eyed but that's the way I really feel.“
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