Tennis, Gambling Debts and Murder

The tennis world has been rocked by a series of scandals over the past few weeks, including allegations of match fixing, a failed drugs test by Maria Sharapova, and the resignation of Indian Wells tournament chief Raymond Moore after he expressed sexist views about women’s tennis to the press. Now, the usually genteel world of tennis can add murder to its mounting list of offences.
Furthermore, the case involves Mark De Jong (photo), 29, the coach of Dutch tennis star Robin Haase, who is the world’s 59th ranked tennis player. According to allegations, Mark De Jong murdered businessman Koen Everink on March 4th, with the millionaire’s 6 year-old daughter having discovered the grisly stabbed remains of her father soon after.
While details on the case remain unclear at the moment, Mark De Jong apparently ran up huge gambling debts, and consistently lost money playing poker online. Koen Everink had then apparently lent him €80,000 to help clear his gambling debts, but according to some theories De Jong murdered the businessman after he demanded his money back, and threatened to go public about De Jong’s gambling problem in the absence of a quick resolution.
Mark de Jong was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport on his return from the US with Haase, after the world No 59 withdrew from the Miami Open following an injury. Prior to his arrest, Mark de Jong even confessed to being at Koen Everink’s house on March 3rd, possibly making him the last person to see the businessman alive. According to fellow coach Ramon Sluiter, the millionaire businessman was close to three Dutch players, namely Igor Sijsling, Jesse Huta Galung and Robin Haase. Commenting on the incident, Ramon Sluiter explained:
“We saw Robin and Mark here in Miami and they seemed OK, maybe a little bit down but then I thought that was because Robin was worried about his knee. This is a big shock for everyone.”