Facts and statistics indicate fixing at the very top of men’s tennis by Katarina Pijetlovic, LL.B, LL.M, LL.Lic. LL.D cand.
[email protected] EU and sports law academic Facts and statistics strongly indicate that draws at the Grand Slam tournaments 2008-2011 might have been fixed at the very top of men's tennis. Namely, in 12 out of 12 Grand Slam tournaments played on hard and grass courts between 2008-2011, Federer and Djokovic were always drawn to the same half of the draw, while Nadal and Murray were drawn to the other half. In addition, in five of those 12 tournaments Murray was not among the first four seeded players, so his draw was conducted separately five times. Thus, the statistics are as follows: to get the same result 12 out of 12 times, probability is 1 in 4096. For the case of Murray's separate draws which produced the same result 5 out of 5 times, it is 1 in 32. THEREFORE, THE PROBABILITY TO OBTAIN DRAW RESULTS AS OBTAINED AT THE 12 GRAND SLAM TOURNAMENTS IS 131072 TO 1 (4096 x 32 = 131072). Combined with the study conducted by ESPN on the draws of unseeded players at US Open it reaches 1 in many BILLIONS. FACEBOOK PAGE ON THIS ISSUE WITH MORE DETAILS AVAILABLE AT http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tennis‐ biggest‐public‐secret/284730451547505?sk=wall DRAWING PROCEDURE In general, at the Grand Slam tournaments players are entered in the draw sheet based on their current standing on the ATP rank list.