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Russian tennis player Yana Sizikova has been arrested at the French Open for questioning in a match-fixing investigation, which overshadowed one of the sport’s major tournaments.
An official from the French Tennis Federation confirmed the arrest by French police and said a police investigation was underway.
A player was arrested Thursday night in connection with “facts likely to have been committed in September 2020,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told the Associated Press news agency. One of the reports on the matter informed the Financial Times of the allegations related to party fixing.
Sizikova was released on Friday, her lawyer Frederic Belot told Reuters.
Last September, French prosecutors opened an investigation into fraud in an “organized group” and “active and passive corruption” over the alleged settlement of matches in a women’s doubles match at the 2020 French Open.
The investigation was linked to a match between Romanian couple Andreea Mitu and Patricia Maria Tig, and Sizikova and American Madison Brengle. The Romanians won the match before being eliminated in the third round.
Belot explained that it was alleged that Sizikova and her doubles partner lost a service game on purpose, with the Russian serving double fouls.
She added that Sizikova had contacted the tennis authorities last year and that she provided them with an explanation, which she says “satisfied” them.
“So it’s serene and in the best possible mood that Yana Sizikova went to Paris a week ago to play in the women’s doubles tournament of the 2021 French Open,” Belot said.
“She and her father were extremely surprised when she was arrested.”
Sizikova, 26, ranks 101st in the world in doubles and 765th in singles competition. Throughout her career, she has won $ 206,617 in prizes, according to the Women’s Tennis Association.
She and her doubles partner were eliminated from the French Open in the first round on Thursday, losing in sets in a row.
An agency close to the organization said the International Agency for the Integrity of Tennis, the sport’s anti-corruption watchdog, could get a temporary suspension once a player is charged. The body, created by the governing bodies of the sport, has debated the situation with French police, the person said.
In May, Kazakhstan tennis player Roman Khassanov was banned for ten years after admitting breaches of anti-corruption rules. In January, the ITIA banned the lives of two Russian players following an investigation into the resolution of matches.
In 2016, Novak Djokovic, the best-ranked male individual player in the world, explained how he did it rejected an approach losing a match on purpose when I was a teenager.
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Tennis and football are the two most targeted sports for criminals, according to Europol, the EU police agency, which has warned that financial tensions caused by the coronavirus pandemic in sport and the economy in general could increase the risk of corruption.
Last August, Europol warned of an increase in fixing schemes for matches detected in tennis, with Eurasian organized crime groups “very involved” in sport.
Evidence suggests that nearly 500 tennis matches were tampered with between 2014 and 2018, according to the control agency. Match fixers can try to fix the outcome of a match, individual set, game, or service.
Sizikova’s arrest is the latest controversy to hit this year’s French Open, one of the sport’s four most important events. Earlier this week, number two was ranked Naomi Osaka retired of the event citing mental health issues after a press conference.
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