The Independent Review of Integrity in Tennis, established in January 2016 following reports of match-fixing, has stated that there are huge problems with the integrity of the sport as players at the lower levels of the game receive insufficient prize money, meaning they are susceptible to taking bungs.

The report surveyed more than 3,200 players and found that 14.5 per cent indicated they had first-hand knowledge of match-fixing in the sport.

The review also pointed out that only 336 men and 253 women in world tennis broke even in prize money before coaching costs were taken into account.

As reported by the Guardian, the report stated that: “The nature of the game lends itself to manipulation for betting purposes.

“The player incentive structure creates a fertile breeding ground for breaches of integrity.

“Today, tennis faces a serious integrity problem.

“Detection is difficult, not least because at many lower levels there are no spectators and inadequate facilities to protect players from potential corruptors.

“Moreover, under-performance is often attributed to ’tanking’ which is often tolerated.

“The player incentive structure creates a fertile breeding ground for breaches of integrity, with only the top 250 to 350 players earning enough money to break even.”

It is not just players who have been involved, however.

Much of the problem is said to have derived from the International Tennis Federation's deal with data company Sportradar, who sell constantly updated live scores of tournaments to betting companies.

The deal requires umpires to immediately update the scoreboard on the Sportradar system following each point scored.

Some umpires, however, have delayed putting the scores into the system, allowing gamblers to place bets on old markets knowing what was happening next.

The review has now recommended that this deal with Sportradar be scrapped at the lower levels of tennis and said that scoreboards, from which match data is sold, should be filmed at all times.

It also says betting markets should not be open at the lowest levels of tennis.

Some in the betting industry, however, have warned against banning regulated betting.

“If they stopped gambling at this level, I am pretty sure the gamblers would find a black market to gamble on which would be much harder to control,” a source involved in tennis betting told insidethegames.