Ban Cheats for Life - Navratilova

Former Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova called for lifetime bans for players who throw matches after preparations for the tournament were yesterday overshadowed by claims that eight games at the championships had fallen victim to organized match-fixing.

"I don't think it's been going for very long, but it's really difficult to track," she said on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show. "The only way to really check on it is by betting patterns - and obviously there have been some betting patterns which are very disconcerting ... To me any player that would lose a match on purpose - they are done for life, lifetime ban. Apparently once you do one match, ... you are on the hook because now they have got proof you have done it once."

Claims in the Sunday Times that eight matches had been fixed were dismissed as "unsubstantiated gossip" by Ian Ritchie, chief executive of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. A recent inquiry commissioned by tennis's four world governing bodies said that over the past five years 45 matches had been subject to suspicious betting patterns. The investigation was conducted by former senior policemen Ben Gunn and Jeff Rees, who found "the sport is not institutionally or systematically corrupt", though inquiries are continuing.

The eight Wimbledon matches were first highlighted on a list posted anonymously on the internet before last August's US Open grand slam tournament. The tennis authorities say the list was reviewed by Gunn and Rees during their investigations, but that they discounted it as having "no evidential basis".