Picture Credit: Twitter
Baptiste Crepatte has been handed three years ban and fine worth USD15,000 after multiple breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program (TACP) rules, the International Tennis Integrity Agency informed on Friday. It was determined by ITIA that Crepatte had been involved in the fixing of three matches, with a total of seven breaches of the TACP which includes determining the result of two events and being involved in tennis betting. The player also failed to report corrupt approaches to the ITIA.
“This case is the latest in a series of investigations pursued by the ITIA in conjunction with law enforcement investigations in Belgium, which has seen a number of tennis players implicated in match-fixing incidents,” the agency said. In 2019, a European police agency Europol identified links between match-fixing gambling syndicates in Spain and Belgium that were thought to have paid off dozens of players and corrupted lower-level tennis tournaments. Crepatte reached his highest ranking of 276 in 2019. He took part in a few ITF events last March and hasn't played since on the ATP or ITF level. His best season came in 2018 when he won six titles.
Match-fixing has been a major problem in tennis and ITIA was established in 2021 to handle it. ITIA became aware of 76 suspicious alerts in the final four months of 2022. A Moroccan tennis player, Younes Rachidi was also banned for life earlier this year after being found guilty of 135 match-fixing offenses.
