Tennis: Wimbledon to beef up measures against doping, corruption

LONDON (Reuters) - The Wimbledon championships will protect its squeaky clean image with enhanced anti-doping and anti-corruption measures for this year's 130th tournament, organisers said on Tuesday.

Tennis was rocked by allegations of match-fixing on the eve of this year's Australian Open and suffered another blow to its integrity when former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova said in February she had failed a drugs test.

At a news conference announcing yet another substantial hike in prize money, the All England Club pledged to beef up its safeguards against sport's two biggest threats.

Measures will include data streams and videos of all matches, including in qualifying events, enhanced data monitoring and player education as well as additional anti-doping controls to complement those already run at the tournament by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

No figures were revealed regarding how much the All England Club is investing to safeguard the tournament's integrity. They were more forthcoming about a five per cent rise in prize money, taking the total pool to £28.1 million (S$55.33 million) - second only to the US Open.

The winners of the men's and women's singles titles will pocket £2 million, up 6.4 per cent on 2015. First-round losers in the singles will take home £30,000 - a 161 per cent rise from 2011 when Wimbledon pledged to assist those players struggling lower down the rankings.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.