What's Your Net Bet?

"At Betfair, which is based in London, tennis ranks third behind horse racing and soccer among its one million customers, who together place five million bets each day. More than $60 million was handled for the Wimbledon’s men’s final, won by Roger Federer over Rafael Nadal."

This is the crux of the story in today's NY Times about the threat - real or rumored - in the professional ranks of tennis.

What is both sad and amusing about this item is that many years ago I had the sense that the great John McEnroe/Bjorn Borg rivalry was on occasion orchestrated. Not in the majors like Wimbledon or the US Open, but in exhibitions, which would conveniently run the full three sets.

If any of this is revealed to be true, it will be a dreadful shame, but when the stakes are as high as they now seem to be in real dollars, perhaps we shouldn't be so naively surprised.