Nicolas Kicker retired when match point down to Gustavo Heide in the quarter-finals of an ATP Challenger Tour event in Florianopolis, Brazil. He lost the first set 6-2, and his opponent led 5-1 in the second before the retirement. Kicker, 33, was serving in the seventh game, with the score deuce, when it went advantage to Heide. However, instead of playing the first match point, he shook hands with the chair umpire and then his opponent on the other side of the net.
The former one-time world No. 78 is infamous for being the highest-ranked tennis player ever found guilty of match fixing, having been banned for six years in 2018. Three of those years were suspended by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), pending no further breaches.
He helped fix two Challenger matches in different tournaments in 2015. His ban was later reduced by four months on appeal after supporting their education programme.
Kicker cooperated in producing an educational video for the ITIA “charting his involvement in corruption and warning other players of the consequences”. In it, he said: “At the time, I was 70 in the world, playing Davis Cup, winning, making the third round in Australia, I beat very, very good players, and I had my whole career ahead.
“That year, I was going to end among the top 50 in the world. Everything was going OK for me, playing tennis perfectly, and, well, I made a mistake in 2015 that produced a suspension, and I ruined my career, all because of one match, and you pay for it dearly.”
Kicker claims he was in a vulnerable situation, relying on his parents to fund his career. A person then approached him on Facebook, saying they wanted to sponsor him by providing a monthly stipend and the use of a car in his native Buenos Aires.
However, they then revealed themselves to be a group of gamblers who wanted him to fix a match. Kicker repeatedly describes the experience of throwing a game as “horrible” and acknowledged his name is “stained” on the tour.