Was the Fix in on Wozniacki's 'Injury'?

In a sport that has had a serious gambling scandal involving suspicions of match-fixing, how are we supposed to take Caroline Wozniacki's match the other day?

I'm starting to wonder exactly how many tennis matches aren't really on the up-and-up. Wozniacki, who reached the U.S. Open final, led Anne Kremer 7-5, 5-0 Tuesday at the Luxembourg Open.

And that's when Wozniacki chose to retire from the match with an injury. No broken bones. No fall. She had won seven straight games and was four points from winning.

"The injury suddenly happened," she said.

No way.

The WTA tour needs to investigate, and no matter what they were actually up to, Wozniacki and her father need to be punished somehow. That means suspensions or fines.

Wozniacki hurt her hamstring late in the first set and had a trainer wrap it. Up 3-0 in the second set, she called out her father/coach to the court, and he spoke to her in Polish.

A microphone caught the whole thing, and he apparently told her to play two more games and then quit.

"I chose the sporting way,'' Wozniacki said afterward, admitting that she could have played on.

The sporting way? This was about the least sportsmanlike thing imaginable.

Look, here's how this is being explained: Wozniacki's father, Piotr, didn't want her to risk further injury before next week's season-ending tour championships in Doha. So even if she had beaten Kremer, she wasn't going to play the next match.

The idea then, was to allow Kremer to advance to the next round.

"Let them have some joy," Wozniacki's father reportedly said.

The theory was that fans in Luxembourg would have been happy to see Kremer, who is from Luxembourg, advance.

Piotr later told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that he had told his daughter to play two more games and then decide whether she could be ready for the next round. If not, "Then make the right decision."

That's a little hard to believe. She could have played about another 90 seconds, then had some rest before deciding about the next round.
Image means a lot to tennis, and that's why the sport's governing bodies have been so tough in the crackdown on gambling, or even the appearance of it.

Besides, the 'right decision' would have been to finish the match.

You play a match to the end, or as far as you can. Tennis players consider themselves warriors, standing alone on court with no excuses.

What is the message to Kremer?

It was this: I could have beaten you even though I'm hurt, but I'll let you win.

No one wants to be handed a win like that. It flies right in the face of what tennis is all about.

This is wrong on so many fronts. How about the ticket-buyers, who paid to see a legit match?

And in a sport with gambling issues, you cannot have a coach tell his player to throw a match, no matter what the reason. If she couldn't play at 3-0, then she should have quit then.

If she could have played on, then she should have played on.

I doubt that Wozniacki and her father were involved in match-fixing, but some tough questions need to be asked.

At the least, this is about image. And gamblers reportedly did use the information. Some were said to have placed a bet on Kremer after hearing Wozniacki's dad tell her to retire. The bets were allegedly placed on-line at Betfair, which has not responded to a request for confirmation.

Image means a lot to tennis, and that's why the sport's governing bodies have been so tough in the crackdown on gambling, or even the appearance of it.

Suspicions rose a few years ago with some strange betting during a match with Nikolay Davydenko, who has been cleared of wrong-doing.

Several players since have told of being approached to fix matches. Earlier this year, French player Mathieu Montcourt, now deceased, was suspended five weeks for betting a total of $192 on 36 tennis matches.

That's an awfully big punishment for $5 a match.

It doesn't matter if Wozniacki thought she was doing something nice. The game is on the verge of a credibility gap. Serena Williams doesn't try if she's not playing in a major; she hasn't won a non-major in a year-and-a-half.

And remember last week's cries from the men's tour? Players complained that the tour schedule and demands were too much, and then nine players retired during matches, citing injuries.

This week, Robin Soderling, Feliciano Lopez and Tommy Haas all have won at the Stockholm Open.

All three were among the nine too hurt to finish matches just a few days earlier.

I'm wondering if some of those injuries were real, or if maybe players who didn't really want to be in Saigon for a tournament, anyway, saw Andy Roddick's legitimate injury, and used it as an excuse for dropping out.

For tanking matches.

Come on, tennis. You take a court to win.

You fight to the end. That's what real sportsmen do.

It's what a real warrior would do.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com