Who is Max Wenders, dutch tennis coach banned for match-fixing?

Max Wenders, dutch tennis coach, has been banned for 12 years for match-fixing, the International Tennis Integrity Agency said Wednesday. The 26-year-old had reportedly worked with several players on the WTA Tour as a coach, assistant or hitting partner.

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The ITIA said Wenders admitted to “multiple match-fixing charges” and also admitted to destroying evidence and failing to report a corrupt approach.

One of the charges against Wenders came under a rule which forbids people involved with tennis to “directly or indirectly, facilitate any Player to not use his or her best efforts in any Event.” The ITIA didn’t say when or where the alleged conduct happened, and it didn’t name any players.

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The ITIA said Wenders was banned and fined $12,000 at a hearing in April 2021 but that the sanctions weren’t published until now following submissions from Wenders’ legal team. He is not allowed to attend any tennis tournament authorized by the sport’s main governing bodies until 2033.

Who is Max Wenders? 

Hailing fron the Netherlands, Max Wenders has coached players like Demi Schuurs and Ashleigh Barty. He wanted to be a tennis coach at a very young age. The 26-year-old never played the sport. 

“Tennis is an expensive sport. At 12 or 13, I knew that I am not going to make it because you need a lot of money to become a professional player and I didn’t have support,” Wender said in an interview with The Times of India in 2021. 

He joined an cademy in Belgium where he grew as a coach for the kids.

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“I trained as a player because I knew that if I am going to coach some of the girls in the WTA, I will have to hit with them because it is difficult to find a hitting partner on the tour,” he said.

One of the biggest highlights of his career was being the hitting partner for for former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko. Max Wenders was the assistant coach to Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit.

“For me, two things matter the most. First is respect, and second, whether I like what I am doing. If I don’t get respect and don’t like what I am doing, it doesn’t matter to me if you are in the top 10,” he said.