Starace banned over bets

Starace: five bets

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World number 31 Potito Starace has been suspended for six weeks and fined 30,000 dollars by the ATP for betting on matches.

The Italian number one's suspension will begin on January 1.

The Italian Tennis Federation, which announced the suspension on its web site, reports that the 26-year-old Starace made five bets amounting to a total of around 100 Euros two years ago.

The ATP has also suspended Italian Daniele Bracciali, ranked 258th, for three months and fined him 20,000 dollars for making around 50 bets of about five Euros each. Neither man was betting on his own matches.

The 29-year-old Bracciali has not denied making the bets but is claiming he and Starace have been made scapegoats because they are not big names.

Sacrificial lambs

"We were the sacrificial lambs," said Bracciali, who will also begin serving his suspension at the beginning of 2008. "That is why they have got upset with us. We are not champions and we are not important at a high level.

"But I cannot believe that we Italians were the only ones that placed the odd little bet.

"The regulations of the ATP lend themselves to numerous interpretations of the rule 'not necessary to bet on tennis'. Plus, if I had wanted to be sly I certainly wouldn't place bets in my own name."

Bracciali won the only singles title of his career in 2006 at a low-profile event in Casablanca and Starace has never won a singles event on Tour.

The Italian federation is claiming both players are the victim of an injustice.

In a statement, the organisation noted that both players were unaware of the ATP's betting rules and that they stopped taking part in the activity as soon as they learned of the regulations.

Severe

"Injustice is done," according to the statement. "These penalties are absolutely, excessively severe compared to the magnitude of the violations carried out by the two players."

These are not first Italian players guilty of betting. In November, Alessio Di Mauro was suspended for nine months and became the first played to be penalised by the ATP for betting on matches.

The ATP has grown increasingly concerned about betting and possible match-fixing since August, when an online betting company Betfair reported unusual betting patterns during a match between Russian Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina.