Tennis is clean - well, it is as clean as it can be given the vulnerabilities of an individual sport to crooked practice and malign influence. An independent review of the sport, whose authors delved into every nook and cranny they could find, has concluded that professional tennis is “neither systematically nor institutionally corrupt”, but that it has to work harder than ever to keep its integrity intact.

There remain 45 matches on the various circuits in the past five years that, the report says, should be investigated further. It sounds a dangerous number until you consider that about 100,000 ranking matches will have been completed in that time.

The four tennis authorities - the grand-slam tournament chairmen, the ITF, the ATP and the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour - have agreed to implement the report’s 15 recommendations, including the creation of a global integrity unit and coordinated anticorruption programme. The remit of the review, undertaken by two ex-policemen, Ben Gunn, formerly of the British Horseracing Authority, and Jeff Rees, who oversaw the International Cricket Council’s security unit, was to identify potential threats to integrity and consider the regulatory resources and policies necessary to combat any threats.

When Betfair voided all bets on a fairly inconsequential match between Nikolay Davydenko, from Russia, and MartÍn Vassallo Argüello, of Argenti-na, in Sopot, Poland, nine months ago, a shock wave galvanised the sport. Though the investigation of that incident remains incomplete, five Italian male players have been variously fined and suspended this year for wagering on the outcome of matches.

The review was not without its intriguing revelations. Gunn and Rees said: “During our consultation with senior representatives of the four international tennis bodies, we found a wide disparity of views on whether betting should be allowed on tennis at all. At one end of the spectrum was the view that betting was a scourge, the fount of all evil and the principal reason why the sport had a growing integrity problem. At the other end was a view that betting on tennis was ‘here to stay’ and the sport needed to take a responsible and measured approach towards managing the challenge.

“Furthermore, while professional tennis is not institutionally or systematically corrupt, it is potentially at a crossroads. We recognise that hard evidence to prove the exact level of corrupt activity is limited, but the intelligence available on 45 matches over the past five years, together with suspicions on 27 account holders, some players, and the additional matches identified by Betfair as having suspect betting patterns since Sopot indicates that there is sufficient cause for concern about the integrity of some players and those outside tennis who seek to corrupt them.

“We do not doubt that criminal elements may be involved in seeking to subvert or corrupt players or players’ support staff; that may even involve organised criminal gangs, but to elevate that suspicion to a claim of ‘Mafia’ involvement is, in our view, a distortion of the facts and positively damaging to the sport.”

Andy Roddick, who retired after three games of the BNL D’Italia Masters semi-final in Rome ten days ago, has confirmed he will miss the French Open, which starts on Sunday, with a shoulder problem.