Bulgarian tennis player gets lifetime ban for match-fixing

The Tennis Integrity Unit found Aleksandrina Naydenova guilty of multiple cases of match-fixing.

Bulgaria.- Multiple International Tennis Federation title winner Aleksandrina Naydenova has been banned for life following an investigation into match-fixing.

The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) has found Naydenova, who won 14 International ITF titles and reached an ITF singles ranking of 89, guilty of 12 counts of match-fixing between 2015 and 2019.

At the hearing, anti-corruption officer Richard McLaren also found her guilty of failing to cooperate with its investigation. She will have to pay a fine of $150,000.

Naydenova was provisionally suspended in December last year pending the TIU hearing. She will now be prohibited from participating in any competitions overseen by the sport’s official regulatory bodies. 

The decision comes after two other Bulgarian players, the brothers Karen and Yuri Khachatryan, were banned from the sport after being found guilty of corruption, betting and match-fixing offences.

The Tennis Integrity Unit recently appointed a new senior legal director.

In England earlier this month, the Rugby Football League suspended the player Ryan Atkins for three months after he admitted betting on a match involving his former club, Wakefield Trinity.

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) reported a 52% increase in suspicious betting alerts for the third quarter of the year, with tennis ranking alongside football as the sport that saw most alerts. Both tennis and football were responsible for 25 alerts in the last quarter.