Tennis-X Notes: Tennis Mag Blog-Fixing? More Players Admit to Gamblers Approach

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
From Daniella Lipp, blogging for PRWeek last month with the title "Tennis Magazine takes an ethical hit" -- "In this week's 'The Ethicist' column in The New York Times Magazine, Nick McCarvel, an intern at a 'national magazine' asks for advice handling his editor's request to 'post comments on one of the magazine's online blogs, being sure not to mention my working for the magazine but to write in a style that suggests I'm a reader.' Now, my first instinct was to do a quick Google search on McCarvel to see if I could find out what the magazine in question was. And my search results showed that I wasn't the first person to do so. Mediabistro's Fishbowl NY's Google search on McCarvel uncovered that the publication was Tennis Magazine. An update posted at the bottom of 'The Ethicist' question says the editor has left the magazine, 'apparently for unrelated reasons.' For the magazine's sake, I hope the editor's departure is not a coincidence."...Former doubles champ Todd Woodbridge speaking to The Age on the likelihood of Nikolay Davydenko being involved in match-fixing: "Well, you've got to start believing he is...For a guy ranked four in the world he's had more interesting losses than any of the other top four or five."

Pete Sampras played Jim Courier on Sunday night in an exhibition match at the Anaheim Convention Center, with proceeds from the match benefiting the Orange County Red Cross and its efforts to help victims of the California wildfires."...From the ATP's Stephen Duckitt, speaking to India's Sportstar: "There are a number of good young Asian players coming through the ranks. We have Hyung-Taik Lee from Korea, who is currently the number one player in Asia, Danai Udomchoke from Thailand, who has overtaken Paradorn Srichaphan as the number one Thai player, and of course there is Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi from the sub-continent." -- Good young Asian players? Hyung-Taik Lee is 31 my man...According to Tennis.com: "Flavio Saretta tells Brazilian weekly Istoe he has several times been offered money to lose matches, including 100,000 for a first-round match at the French Open against Potito Starace last year. Marcos Daniel also told the weekly that at Acapulco last year, he was woken up at 6 o'clock in the morning by a phone call offering him $20,000 to lose his first round match against Nicholas Massu."...From Tom Tebbutt of the Globe and Mail: "The Bell Challenge in Quebec City kicks off Monday with a field headed by Lindsay Davenport, Nicole Vaidisova and Vera Zvonareva. To absolutely no one's surprise, the original top-ranked entrant, No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze, pulled out at the last minute. The world No. 7, who has qualified for the eight-player WTA Tour Championships in Madrid next week, was never likely to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Quebec City for the $175,000 Tier 3 event and then go back to Spain for the $3 million year-end grand finale."...Venus Williams has pulled from the year-end WTA Tour Championships citing a dizziness problem dating to the US Open...Mardy Fish hit 43 aces during his second round match at the Lyon where he lost to Olivier Rochus. Fish was one short of the best-of-three sets record of 44 set by Mark Philippoussis in 1995...Justine Henin will overtake Lindsay Davenport for total weeks at the No. 1 ranking, moving into sixth place all-time by the time the Jan. 2008 season begins...Gaston Gaudio, recently making a comeback attempt on the challenger circuit, is reportedly out for the remainder of the year with a leg injury...Russian Anna Chakvetadze has qualified in the No. 6 position for the eight-woman field at the WTA Tour Championships...Russian Nikolay Davydenko, already under investigation regarding irregular betting patterns when he retired in the third set in an ATP event in Poland, didn't help his cause at the ATP event in his home country of St. Petersburg, Russia, when he was fined $2,000 for "lack of best effort" during a 1-6, 7-5, 6-1 defeat by Croatian qualifier Marin Cilic. During the third set where Davydenko won only one game, he was warned by Belgian chair umpire Jean-Philippe Dercq. Davydenko denied any wrongdoing on his part. "I double-faulted to lose a game in the third set and he gave me a warning saying I was trying to lose on purpose," Davydenko said. "I was simply shocked to hear him say that. This is just outrageous. How does he know what I was trying to do? I was so upset with the whole thing I started crying. The reality is that I started feeling tired. My legs were just dead by the third set. Maybe my problems are psychological, maybe it's in my head."...Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi played a charity tennis match in Germany on Saturday, playing mixed doubles against Justine Henin and Goran Ivanisevic to raise money for Graf's charity "Children for Tomorrow" which supports children and their families traumatized by war or organized crime. According to dpa the funds are to be used for a new trauma clinic in Hamburg, a bigger engagement in South Africa and for a therapeutical kindergarden in Eritrea. "I want to have fun, make the fans happy and especially do something for children," Graf said....Maria Sharapova's next title could be Television Producer as the Russian star has partnered with writer Jacob Epstein to pitch a sports-themed drama to the CW network. The show will be pro tennis-themed, and CBS Paramount Network TV will handle the project which is still just in the script stage...David Ferrer clinched the No. 6 spot at the Masters Cup over the weekend...Maria Sharapova and Daniela Hantuchova clinched the final two singles berths at the 2007 Sony Ericsson Championships over the weekend...From Matt Scott writing for The Guardian: "Anti-corruption investigators from the online betting exchange Betfair have launched an inquiry into Wednesday's St Petersburg Open match between Dmitry Tursunov and Boris Pashanski after punters cried foul over unusual market moves. The fifth-seeded Tursunov lost to Scotland's Andy Murray, the second seed, yesterday but it was the Russian's 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 second-round win over Serbia's Pashanski that drew scrutiny. One punter states that Tursunov was continually being backed to win the match at 1.20 [Betfair's equivalent of 5-1 on] despite having lost the first set and trailing 2-0 in the second. Betfair has declined to void the market because, according to a source close to the investigation, prices had been influenced by the actions of a single high-rolling punter, an individual well known to the exchange as a significant net loser. It is said that he had attempted to place a large bet discreetly through the organisation's brokerage team but, frustrated at delays, lumped on his stake "up front", sending prices tumbling. However, independent punters who were observing the market believe Tursunov still had significant short-price backers. "Those in the know continued to back him at ridiculously low prices even while he was getting treatment for a lower back injury at the end of the first set," said the Betfair punter."