Davydenko tennis match at centre of gambling probe

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

LONDON (AFP) — An online bookmaker has suspended payouts on a match involving Russian world number four Nikolay Davydenko because of irregular betting patterns, the company said on Friday.

Davydenko pulled out with a foot injury while trailing 2-6, 6-3, 2-1 to Argentina's Martin Vassallo Arguello in the claycourt tournament at Sopot in Poland on Thursday.

Betfair said that around 3.4 million pounds had been bet before the match and during the first set - 10 times the amount typical for a match of this kind, distorting the market.

"It's not so much the amount that was bet, it's the prices at which they were bet," Betfair spokesman Mark Davies told the BBC website.

"Davydenko won the first set but during the course of winning it, his price drifted out...