Tennis launches corruption review

ATP chief De Villiers wants to protect the integrity of the sport

Tennis' governing bodies have joined together to launch a review of their anti-corruption policies after recent match-fixing and betting scandals.

The International Tennis Federation, the ATP, the WTA and the organisers of the Grand Slams are all involved.

WTA Tour chief Larry Scott said the review was "an important step to ensure we do everything in our power to combat the very real threat of gambling".

Former British police officers Jeffrey Rees and Ben Gunn will lead the study.

The new review will work alongside existing policies before a comprehensive integrity unit is created to regulate all professional tennis.

Rees and Gunn are both former Metropolitan police officers who have already worked on anti-corruption programmes in other sports.

We will be taking a bold and significant step in ensuring the future integrity of our sport ATP chief Etienne de Villiers

Rees established, and still runs, an anti-corruption unit for the International Cricket Council, while Gunn led a group to examine the integrity of the British horse racing industry.

Etienne de Villiers, executive chairman of the ATP, added: "We remain fully committed to meeting the global challenge posed by gambling face on.

"By harnessing the scale and resources of the entire sport to create a Tennis Integrity Unit we will be taking a bold and significant step in ensuring the future integrity of our sport.

"We are delighted that in Jeff Rees and Ben Gunn we have retained two of the world's leading sports integrity experts to help us realise that objective."

A series of scandals involving gambling damaged tennis' reputation last season.

A match involving world number four Nikolay Davydenko is still being investigated by the ATP over irregular betting patterns.

And three Italian players, Potito Starace, Alessio Di Mauro and Daniele Bracciali, have all received bans for betting, albeit on other players' matches.

The ATP stepped up its quest to root out match-fixing in October after British number one Andy Murray told the BBC he believed some tennis matches were being fixed and that other players were aware of it.