The gambling problem and match fixing in tennis is alive and kicking at the beginning of 2008. One of the worst fears of tournament organisers came to light during the Antwerp women's tournament this week when three spectators where caught gambling on line on their personal laptops, from the stadium in Antwerp, on the match they where watching and also other matches taking place around the tournament site.

The fans, a German spectator and two Russians, were spotted by one of the security staff during the act when the spectators were logged into a betting internet site.

The tournament director in Antwerp, Katya Sterbants, said she was sorry they didn't yet have the opportunity to give severe punishments to gamblers in the sport. The three spectators were only taken out from the court and the tournaments site with no further action against them.

The incident comes at a time when suspicions of gambling and match fixing are high in the tennis world – in the women's and men's game alike. Only a few weeks ago, six women players on the WTA tour (their names were not published), admitted they were approached and asked at different occasions to throw or fix their matches results.

While gambling in America seems to concentrate on American Football, basketball and baseball, it seems Europeans have found a new sport besides soccer and horse racing to "have fun with" – tennis. Why is that?

Maybe an individual sport is easier to "control". It is a fact that all tennis players who have talked about the problem have been low ranking players who are easily approachable. Only when Nikolay Davidenko's case came to light did the problem begin to be taken seriously and seen as exactly that – a problem, because, let's face it, no-one really believes gambling in tennis started then and there.