Yana Sizikova made headlines on Thursday as she was arrested for match-fixing suspicion at last year’s French Open. However, on Friday, she was released from police custody and planned out to press charges for defamation and deny all the allegations against her, her lawyer Frederic Belot said.
The prosecutor’s office had arrested her for sports bribery and organized fraud committed in September 2020”. The case was opened last October by the French police unit, while the French Open organization kept mum, and refused to provide information because there’s still an ongoing investigation.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency which was responsible for the investigation of the match-mixing report also declined to comment on this case but left a message that there’s an ongoing investigation between them and the law enforcement in France.
Upon her arrest, Sizikova was extremely shocked, because she was treated like a criminal. She insisted that she is innocent against those allegations and she doesn’t want to be assisted during the questioning because she is a victim of the situation, Belot shared in an interview. Her lawyer will be representing her on Friday, as Belot will be consulted by Sizikova’s parents, too.
The prosecutor’s office mentioned that the suspicion started during a match at Roland Garros, which he did not specify, where the German newspaper Die Welt and French Sports news update L’Equipe that there was a suspicious betting pattern on the women’s doubles on September 2020.