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Oliver Anderson, once tipped to be the next big Australian tennis star, recently won his first professional tennis title since his suspension seven years ago. Anderson was embroiled in a match-fixing scandal in 2016-17.
Born in Brisbane, Australia in 1998, Anderson made his professional debut in 2013. His first appearance on the ATP Tour came at the 2016 Brisbane International. He was given a qualifying wildcard and scored two upset victories to reach the main draw. Unfortunately, he lost the first-round match.
He was then awarded wildcards for the qualifying round of the 2016 Australian Open and the 2016 Australian Open Junior Championships. While he could not make his senior Grand Slam debut, Anderson, then 17, made full use of his junior wildcard and went on to win the tournament after beating Uzbekistan's Jurabek Karimov in the final.
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However, the high of a Grand Slam title quickly disappeared when the Australian was found guilty of match-fixing during a Challenger tournament in October 2016. After he accepted the charges, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) suspended Anderson from professional tennis for 19 months.
After the scandal, Anderson did not play a professional match and retired at the age of 20. He returned to the sport in March this year at the age of 26 and won his first professional title after coming back at the recently concluded Angola Open M15 in Luanda, an ITF event.
Anderson, currently ranked World No. 845, lost one set en route to the final of Luanda M15 in November. In the title contest, he faced World No. 432 Robert Strombachs of Latvia and defeated the top seed 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (5) to win his maiden professional title.
Oliver Anderson made his professional comeback at the M25 Mildura in Australia on March 11, 2024, and has only played ITF tournaments so far. He reached the quarterfinals at the M25 Xalapa in Mexico, M15 Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic, and M25 Maputo in Mozambique.
A detailed account of Oliver Anderson's match-fixing scandal
After his 2016 Australian Open junior triumph, Oliver Anderson fell in the qualifying rounds of Challenger level tournaments in Busan and Seoul. He was awarded a main draw wildcard to compete at the Latrobe City Traralgon ATP Challenger tournament in Victoria, Australia, in October 2016.
Anderson, ranked World No. 706 at the time, defeated compatriot Harrison Lombe in the first round, 4-6, 6-0, 6-2, before losing to another Australian, John Patrick Smith, in the second round 6-1, 6-2. A few months later, Anderson was charged with fixing the result of his first-round match at Traralgon Challenger.
According to official reports, Anderson was approached to tank the first set against Lombe and did so, as he was broken at 4-4 after two double faults. While Anderson won the match, the breach caught the eye of authorities and led to legal proceedings. Anderson pleaded guilty to the match-fixing charge in May 2017 and was fined $500 by Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court.
ITIA mentioned Anderson's conviction in its report and noted that he received no financial compensation for match-fixing. Anderson reached his career-high singles ranking of 639 in July 2016.
