Sport is made for betting

Settle down, it's nothing from Melbourne but the bent-as-a-three-bob-note ATP match from St Petersburg in October between Filippo Volandri and Teymuraz Gabashvili. The Evening Standard reports that the Tennis Integrity Unit is investigating the circumstances around this match. I posted twice on this match originally, here and then a day later here . Volandri will almost certainly retire this year anyway, so I suspect any penalty will be meaningless anyway.

Here's what Tennisform had to say about the match yesterday. 24/10 2100 - Volandri hasn't played since retiring with a right forearm injury in the Palermo challenger earlier this month. Volandri's last match off the dirt was in this event 2 years ago, where he lost 6-4 6-4 to the Russian wild card Mikhail Elgin. It goes wthout saying that close attention should be paid to the market in his match against Gabashvili. 25/10 13:52 Gabashvili will have a 2-1 win over Volandri today if the set betting is to be believed. Nearly 60K has been matched on set betting on Betfair with plenty under 3.5 on the 2-1 option. The outright market has had plenty of interest too with the price on Gabashvili yo-yoing between 1.21 and 1.52. 18:52 Gabashvili advanced to the second round at the expense of Filippo Volandri, who didn't appear to have any intention of winning this match and acted out his part of the script well. Gabashvili was heavily supported throughout the one hour...

The ATP have been getting slack on fixed matches this year so it's only fitting that after last week's Janko Tipsarevic fix, we've got another one going on right now in St Petersburg, in front of a huge crowd of about 20 spectators. Filippo Volandri is obviously supposed to lose and is doing his level best to make sure that happens. He won the first set, yet Gabashvili's price to win the match shortened. Gabashvili then goes down a break in the 2nd set, takes an injury timeout for treatment on his right knee which is now strapped heavily. Volandri makes sure he can't go further ahead by throwing in two timely double-faults to lose his serve. Gabashvili wins the second set, then Volandri hands him a very soft break in the opening game of the third. At 2-1 in the third set, the Italian conveniently calls out the trainer for treatment on his right arm and pops a pill to make it look like there are reasons for his pathetic tanking. He is now doing everything he can ...