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he International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and Sportradar Integrity Services have announced the extension of their integrity partnership through to the end of 2023.

As part of the deal, ITTF-organised events, such as the World Table Tennis Championships and World Table Tennis (WTT) events, will be monitored by Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System (FDS) to analyse irregular betting patterns and any suspicious matches with regards to potential match-fixing.

The ITTF will also have the option to use Sportradar Intelligence & Investigation Services, which work to identify and investigate integrity threats and issues with Sportradar providing a comprehensive risk assessment within Table Tennis.

ITTF CEO, Steve Dainton, who spoke to Ministry of Sport about the evolving direction of the organisation earlier in the year, said: “Protecting the integrity of our events is of the utmost importance, and our partnership with Sportradar Integrity Services helps to strengthen our integrity programme.”

“By utilising their extensive experience in the field of sports integrity, we believe that we are in the strongest possible position to identify integrity issues in our competitions and address any emerging risk factors threatening our sport,” Dainton said.

Sportradar Integrity Services managing director, Andreas Krannich, said the partnership extension exemplifies the strength of the partnership that began in 2017.

“We are proud to announce this multi-year extension of our partnership with ITTF.

“In our position as a leader in sporting integrity, it is our top priority to provide our partners with an effective framework to combat match-fixing and other integrity issues, especially when considering the increased risk to global sport as a result of the challenged brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We look forward to continuing to support the ITTF’s integrity programme and helping to uphold the integrity of global Table Tennis competitions,” Krannich said.