Japanese tennis player banned for life for match-fixing

LONDON – Japanese tennis player Junn Mitsuhashi, who reached a career ranking high of No. 295 in 2009, was banned for life Tuesday for match-fixing and fined $50,000.

The Tennis Integrity Unit said in a statement that Mitsuhashi was found guilty of “making corrupt approaches to other players, betting on tennis matches and refusing to co-operate” with the TIU investigation.

The 27-year-old Mitsuhashi asked Joshua Chetty, a player he used to coach, to approach another player in an ITF Futures tournament in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in November 2015.

A month after approaching Chetty, Mitsuhashi asked another player to fix aspects of a match at a Futures tournament in Lagos, Nigeria.

Mitsuhashi, who was ranked 1,997th at the end of 2015, also placed 76 bets on matches in October-November of that year.

Chetty was banned for life in 2016 after a separate TIU investigation.