Love all those super insightful tweets by the likes of Muzz and Serena? Tough luck. Apparently Serena's sleep habits may be considered "insider information" by the Tennis Integrity Unit (that exists?).
Jeff Rees, a former Scotland Yard detective who is now the director of the Tennis Integrity Unit, has sent an email to players warning them that their 'tweets', the posts which they send to the website, could be violating the sport's anti-corruption rules on "the passing of inside information".
Even discussing the weather or the court conditions at a tournament could be seen as divulging 'inside information' about the circuit.
Under the heading, 'Important player notice – Twitter warning', the email informed players that they should not be sending 'tweets' that include "sensitive information" which relates to their own matches, or to other players and their matches.
Rees reminded players that inside information is defined in the anti-corruption rules as 'information about the likely participation or likely performance of a player in an event or concerning the weather, court conditions, status, outcome, or any other aspect of an event which is known by a covered person and is not information in the public domain'.
In the rules, players, their coaches, agents and their family, and all tournament staff, are regarded as covered persons.
You know a lawyer drafted that language because it vague enough to pretty much cover anything and everything. It's so fucking ridiculous. If tennis has such a problem with it then ban betting. Otherwise, if Andy Roddick wants to tell the world that he had a shit practice before his semifinal match, let him.
