Bernard Tomic, a professional tennis player from Australia, was apparently under a multi-agency investigation for suspicious betting patterns, including a match against Roman Safiulin during the 2022 Australian Open qualifiers, and another match during a tournament in Turkey.
The investigation, which saw Tomic not picking up criminal charges, was conducted by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) and the police strike force Whyman in a joint effort.
The probe saw the strike force and the ITIA focus on suspicious online betting activity allegedly conducted by Tomic, with winnings reportedly ranging from $10,000 to $180,000, in what the investigators described as a “several-man operation”.
In addition to Bernand Tomic, three men from New South Wales were also probed by the authorities, who believed they were somehow connected to the tennis player, either through a close relative or directly to Tomic himself.
During the investigation, the ITIA confiscated Tomic’s phone and questioned the tennis player about his involvement in the suspicious matches Moreover, Tennis Australia said that its anti-corruption officers collaborated with both the ITIA and the law enforcement during the investigation procedure.
Consequently, after a lengthy investigation which lasted for several months, the report of the ITIA and the strike force Whyman conducted that there was no sufficient evidence of criminal conduct by Bernard Tomic.
The fact that there wasn’t enough evidence for criminal charges to be brought up against the tennis player, led the organization to issue an official statement saying that there was no longer an active police investigation into the matter and that the case was closed.
Tomic, who is currently ranked World No. 212 on the ATP, refused to give a comment on the investigation.
This development comes after a busy year for the ITIA, which saw the organization issue several sanctions against match-fixing, including the suspension of a Bosnian tennis official for integrity breaches, as well as sanctions against three Nigerian tennis players for breaches of the Tennis-Anti-Corruption Program.
