London, October 1: Spanish tennis player Gerard Joseph Platero Rodriguez has been suspended for four years and fined USD 15,000 after being convicted of courtsiding, the first player to be charged with the offense.

The Tennis Integrity Unit said Wednesday that six months of the ban were suspended on condition that no further breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program were committed.

It said an investigation established that Rodriguez, who has no ranking, had acted as a courtsider at an ITF tournament held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in July 2019. Court-siding is a prohibited practice which involves transmission of live scoring data from a match to a third party for betting purposes.

Rodriquez was also found to have placed 75 online bets on tennis matches during June 2019. The integrity unit said he also failed to "engage or provide any form of co-operation" during its investigation.

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