Rome: Italian tennis player Daniele Bracciali partially admitted to match-fixing during a hearing last week with judicial authorities, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
“He admitted a few things and he denied a few things,” Italian investigator Roberto Di Martino said.
Bracciali and occasional doubles partner Potito Starace face corruption accusations after intercepted internet conversations claiming they sold matches were printed in Italian media three weeks ago.
Bracciali and Starace were already two of five Italians — along with Alessio Di Mauro, Giorgio Galimberti and Federico Luzzi — who were given suspensions in 2007-08 by the ATP Tour ranging from six weeks to nine months for betting.
The intercepted comments are part of data that investigators led by Di Martino in Cremona have been sorting through in a football match-fixing inquiry. The roots of the football inquiry led to Singapore, and the tennis branch of the investigation is also extending beyond borders.
“The reality is it’s the same story as with the football case,” Di Martino said. “It’s reached a level where it’s all over the world.”
The Last Bet operation has resulted in more than 100 people placed under investigation in Italy since mid-2011, with suspect football matches being looked at by prosecutors in Cremona, Bari and Naples.
Di Martino would not confirm or deny reports that former Swedish tennis player Tomas Nydahl is also under investigation for recruiting players to fix matches.
“I can’t say. I don’t know where he is,” Di Martino said of the 46-year-old Nydahl, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 72 in 1998.
Di Martino said no other foreign tennis players are involved. In a July 2007 conversation on Skype between Bracciali and an accountant, who was arrested in 2011, Bracciali discussed arranging a match in Newport, Rhode Island, against American player Scoville Jenkins. Jenkins won 6-2, 6-1.
In 2011, an owner of a betting parlour, who was later arrested, was heard saying Starace agreed to sell the final of a tournament in Casablanca. Pablo Andujar of Spain won the final 6-1, 6-2.
