American player Andre Ilagan is the subject of widespread speculation on social media for allegedly faking an injury to manipulate the outcome of a tennis match.
The player in question is a graduate of the University of Hawaii, who was playing at the $25,000 ITF tournament in Hong Kong on Tuesday against Indonesian player Fitriadi M Rifqi. 22-year-old Ilagan is ranked 816th in the ATP world rankings and was instilled as the pre-match favorite according to the oddsmakers against the higher-ranked Fitriadi.
In a post shared on X (formerly known as Twitter) with a synopsis of the match from the handle SamardzicFlair, the video shows Ilagan taking a tumble abruptly after hitting a forehand shot in play. He immediately dropped his racket and held his ankle while screaming in pain.
The left-handed American took a commanding lead 6-1, 2-1 lead in the match and seemingly well on his way to a straight sets win. But his momentum was disrupted by a rain break that reportedly lasted for at least two hours.
Ilagan lost two games in succession giving his opponent a break advantage in the second set. It was at that moment that the American player was accused of faking the injury. He quickly picked himself up from the turf immediately after the fall while 3-2 down in the second set and appeared to go courtside possibly to pick up a towel.
The match resulted in a retirement win for the Fitriadi. While we can only speculate about the nature of the injury itself and how it happened, tennis fans on X have shared their views, describing it as extremely dodgy.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) is the body that is tasked to safeguard the integrity and professionalism of the sport. Part of its mandate is to gather sufficient intelligence and scrutinize manipulation of tennis results for match-fixing.
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