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The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) on Tuesday fined US Davis Cup team coaches Mardy Fish and Bob Bryan for violating betting sponsorship rules in tennis.
The ITIA, which safeguards the integrity of professional tennis worldwide, issued fines of $10,000 each and suspended bans of four months to the two coaches after they were found guilty of promoting DraftKings on social media during the 2022 US Open.
"Both had been accredited as part of the US Davis Cup coaching team in 2022, meaning they are considered "covered persons" and subject to the sport's rules around relationships with betting operators. Section D.1.b of the 2022 Tennis Anti- Corruption Programme (TACP) rules states that: "No Covered Person shall directly or indirectly, facilitate, encourage and/or promote Tennis Betting ('Facilitation')," an ITIA statement read.
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The ITIA further stated that both individuals were cooperative as they immediately took down the posts. The bans will not come into force unless there is another breach by Fish and Bryan during the four-month period which began on November 11.
Fans were quick to call out the double standards of the tennis authorities, claiming that the majority of the tournaments were officially sponsored by betting companies.
"If you're gonna punish people for encouraging it, don't have a betting company behind the name of ATP. I hate betting and think it should have no place in sports. I just wish the corporations can commit to the sentiment," a fan tweeted.
"Then why don’t federations get fined for having partnerships with gambling companies. One of them being the French Tennis Federation. If they want it to be fully abandoned it has to be applied to all levels including tournaments and federations," a user wrote.
"I get that they don't want active individual players & coaches promoting gambling, but it's splitting some pretty fine hairs to then allow it to infiltrate sponsorships of tourneys & broadcast channels. Maybe the issue can be discussed at the Draft Kings desk on TC," another tweet read.
Here are some more reactions:
Tension mounts between Mardy Fish and Rajeev Ram after US exits Davis Cup
Italy knocked out the US 2-1 in the quarterfinals of the Davis Cup last week. After contributing significantly during the qualifiers and group stage, Rajeev Ram was furious that the team left him out for the knock-out stages. Partnering with Britain's Joe Salisbury, Ram won two Masters 1000 tournaments, a Grand Slam title, and the Nitto ATP Finals this season.
However, after Jack Sock and Tommy Paul lost the deciding doubles match, Mardy Fish stated that Ram wouldn't have made a difference anyway.
“We’ve got a lot of great players that play for the U.S. Rajeev is one of them," Mardy Fish said. "He wasn’t on the team this year, and that’s my choice. This is the team that I put on the court. We had a lot of options. This was the team we went with today. But if Rajeev was here or not, those guys were going to win today. They played well and they’re too good.”
