Nicolás Kicker arrived in Paris in top form. The 25-year-old Argentine was an outsider’s bet to go deep into the draw of the French Open, one of tennis’s four Grand Slam events. He’d recently reached the third round of the Australian Open, earning just over US$100,000 in prize money. He finally no longer relied on his parents to support him. A few more wins would put him on course to break into the game’s top 30 players globally, his dream since adolescence. It was May 2018, and Kicker was ranked world number 84.
On the Thursday before the tournament began, Kicker was practising on the red clay courts of Stade Roland-Garros. He thwacked the ball with his signature power and precision while his parents and young son, Bastian, watched courtside. But his excitement about the coming contest was overtaken by a growing sense of dread. Twenty-four hours earlier, he’d been found guilty of match-fixing, following a three-year investigation. As was typical at the time, he’d been allowed to continue playing while he awaited a decision on whether or not he’d be sanctioned. Kicker had no idea what was going to happen or when.
That afternoon, he received a phone call in his hotel room. On the end of the line was an agent from the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), as the sport’s corruption watchdog was then known, who rescinded Kicker’s invitation to Roland-Garros. He was being banned from competing in, or even attending, any professional tennis event indefinitely. He would receive the full details of his sentence in due course, the agent told him tersely. He was stunned.