Wimbledon matches under investigation over match-fixing

Three matches at the 2017 Wimbledon Championships will be investigated for possible match-fixing, the Tennis Integrity Unit has announced.

Alerts were triggered on two matches at the qualifying event at Roehampton and one from the main draw at SW19 after some unusual betting patterns.

The matches and players concerned have not been disclosed.

The matches will now be reviewed by the TIU in keeping with their match alert policy, along with one from last month's French Open, though they stress that an alert is not evidence of match-fixing.

Those are four of 53 alerts received by the TIU since April, with three coming on the men's ATP Tour and one on the women's WTA Tour. The rest came on the lower level Challenger, Futures and ITF Women's circuits.

The latest figures show a drop in the number of alerts from the same period last year, where 73 were received in 2016. The first six months of 2017 has seen 83 alerts raised in total, 38 less than last year.

It is not uncommon for matches to trigger alerts, though Grand Slam events usually experience fewer investigations.

One match at Wimbledon and another at the US Open were the subjects of similar probes in 2016.

There are various factors which can influence betting patterns, and these are not necessarily sinister, with incorrectly drawn-up odds, player injuries and conditions on court all taken into consideration.