Sportradar Boosts Australia Open Integrity and Protects Tennis

Tennis Australia has extended an existing partnership with Sportradar after a public tender to help pick a data supplier and boost oversight on tennis in the country to prevent match-fixing offenses.

Sportradar and Tennis Australia Tie-Up a New Partnership Extension

Sportradar, an established provider of sports data solutions, has extended its partnership with Tennis Australia in a bid to provide cutting-edge informative solutions and help boost the integrity of the sport in Australia.

"@TennisAustralia has a truly innovative & progressive approach to nurturing & advancing the interests of the game."

Sportradar today announced a partnership extension with #TennisAustralia across AV & data content, encoding technology and Integrity Services.#AO2020 | #AusOpen

— Sportradar (@Sportradar) January 20, 2020

First inked in 2016, the partnership is taking on a new scale, after Sportradar publicly applied and won competing against other data suppliers. Moving forward, Sportradar will provide its Integrity Fraud Detection Services to help boost the overall integrity of tennis in the country as well monitor any potential match-fixing and sports betting-related offenses.

The deal was announced earlier today on the occasion of the Australian Open, one of the flagship competitive events in the world of tennis at all. According to Sportradar Head of Sports Partnerships, David Lampitt, Tennis Australia offers a unique approach towards improving the overall quality of tennis.

This and the fact that Sportradar providers a cutting-edge technology will advance the interest of tennis as well as provide Tennis Australia with the necessary solutions to safeguard the integrity of all competitions.

Tennis Match-Fixing Reports Still Continue to Come In

The extended partnership comes at a crucial time when the latest Global Lottery Monitoring System report has revealed that some 26 tennis matches have been flagged and sent for revision to the Tennis Integrity Unit as likely to be related to match-fixing.

In January 2019, Spanish police arrested multiple individuals on suspicion of running a match-fixing ring. One of the professional players had also participated in the most recent at the time US Open, highlighting the dangers of match-fixing even in the highest level of tennis.

For its part, the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) has received some 138 pertaining to suspicion betting and match activity all throughout last year. Australia has been meticulous about fighting match-fixing and profiteering in any way, and specifically through sports betting, off-fixed games.

In fact, Australia even arrested video gamers for allegedly fixing matches in Valve’s popular first-person shooter (FPS) Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Interestingly, Sportradar is also involved in esports, a sector in which it launched a joint-venture under the name of Bayes Esports to provide similar data and integrity solutions.

The individuals could face up to a few years in prison. In 2016, police had to intervene because of a fixed Australian Open doubles game. Nick Lindahl, Brandon Walkin, and Isaac Frost were found guilty of having committed corruption offenses dating back to 2013.