Authorities to probe Wimbledon bet pattern

LONDON, June 24 (UPI) -- An online gambling operation says it alerted British tennis authorities about unusual betting activity on a Wimbledon match involving Austrian Jurgen Melzer.

Officials of Betfair said they told Britain's Tennis Integrity Unit an unusually high number of wagers were placed Tuesday betting the 26th-seed player would defeat Wayne Odesnik of the United States in the first round, which he did in straight sets, The Times of London reported.

The newspaper said there was no intimation of wrongdoing, but authorities are nonetheless expected to look into the game to determine whether the betting patterns merely reflected fans' judgment that the injured Odesnik would lose or if there were anything more to it.

"We have a memorandum of understanding with the Tennis Integrity Unit which allows them to see betting patterns of all the betting which takes place on our site and we alerted them to this," Mark Davies of Betfair told The Times. "It was extremely visible to all our customers, the price moving in as quickly as it did. There was a lot of chat about it on our forums."