THE U.S. OPEN 2015 TENNIS USED AN UMPIRE THAT WAS BANNED FOR CORRUPTION

Written by: Staff on 15th February 2016

THE U.S. OPEN 2015 TENNIS USED AN UMPIRE THAT WAS BANNED FOR CORRUPTION

epa04929151 Rain begins to fall on Arthur Ashe Stadium just minutes before Roger Federer of Switzerland and Novak Djokovic of Serbia were to arrive on court for the men's final on the fourteenth day of the 2015 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 13 September 2015. The US Open runs through 13 September, which is a return to a 14-day schedule. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO |

The US Open’s tournament director David Brewer has a lot of explaining to do after acknowledging banned umpire Denis Pitner worked through qualifying and the first 11 days of the last year’s main draw.

Pitner, the Croatian official who was suspended from the sport just prior to the US Open last August after being found to have logged on to a betting account from which bets were placed on matches, worked as a linesman at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center.

The United States Tennis Association, ultimately responsible for the integrity of the US Open, admitted its’ negligence and explained the error as “a flaw in our process”.

According to the USTA, Pitner apparently picked up his credential to work the Grand Slam event before the officiating department had received notification of the suspension.

International Tennis Federation president David Haggerty, previously president of the USTA, told the New York Times: “We are working closely together, and we are doing everything we can, but we’ve got to communicate on an ongoing basis in a better way than we have.

“I think everyone has good intentions, but now we’ve got to connect the dots and make sure the process is in place to do what we need to do to make sure tennis is clean.”

Yet, even more recently just last month, Pitner also officiated on the line at the calendar-opening Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha where world no.1 Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in the final.

Pitner was actually suspended on August 1, 2015, for 12 months for after being found guilty of “sending information on the physical well-being of a player to a coach during a tournament and regularly logging on to a betting account from which bets were placed on tennis matches.”

A spokesman for the USTA said: “After learning within the last 24 hours that an official on the ‘do not credential’ list may have worked at the 2015 US Open as a linesman. The USTA was shocked to find that this was in fact the case.

“Due to a flaw in our process, which we are investigating now, Mr. Pitner’s credential was not cancelled. For this reason, he did work as a linesman at the 2015 US Open.

“The USTA takes this matter extremely seriously and has made the investigation of what caused the error its highest priority. We will also work with the newly created independent review panel to ensure instances such as this are not repeated in the future.”

Gordon A. Smith, the chief operating officer and executive director of the USTA, followed up by adding: “The new watchword for tennis is transparency. I think there’s no doubt about that.

“We’ve always had to balance confidentiality and putting names out there when there’s not evidence, but you can overdo that and people can think, Well, you’re not doing anything, when in fact we’re doing a lot. So there’s a balance, and we need to make people understand that our interest is in the integrity of the sport.”

The ATP World Tour also admitted that Pitner crept through their net for the Doha event and blamed a breach in procedures. The Croatian Tennis Federation have been informed and will now monitor Pitner’s movements far closer.

Story Via Permission Of Bob Larson Tennis News