Three men were removed by organisers after they were found to be gambling via laptops from the stands at the Diamond Games in Antwerp.

"Three spectators were removed. The two Russians and one German were holding a laptop and logged on to a gambling website and were gambling on ongoing matches," said event spokeswoman Katia Stroobants.

Tennis has been dogged by allegations of match-fixing and illegal gambling in the past year.

Several male players have said they were approached to fix matches while betting exchanges have noted irregular patterns.

The spokeswoman said those who were asked to leave the Sportpaleis in Antwerp late on Monday were allegedly "exploiting the delay between the time a point was won and the time it appeared on the official tournament website".

A spokeswoman for the WTA tour said the decision to remove the men was taken after consultations with the governing body.

"The WTA takes a zero tolerance approach to this issue," she said. "The men were asked to leave or hand over their laptops and they decided to leave with their computers.

"Unfortunately we do not have any other powers."

In actual play, meanwhile, Bulgarian qualifier Tsvetana Pironkova powered past Luxembourg's Anne Kremer 6-1 6-1 to earn a second-round meeting with world number one Justine Henin.

Pironkova, who had to come through two qualifying matches, made easy work of her opponent and will face the home favourite on Thursday.

Sixth seed Agnes Szavay of Hungary was shocked by Russian qualifier Alisa Kleybanova 6-2 6-3 while American Julie Ditty overcame Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko, ranked 83 places above her, 4-6 6-3 6-4.

Italy's Karin Knapp came from behind to defeat Russia's Yaroslava Shvedova 3-6 6-4 6-2 to secure the first quarter-final berth at the Antwerp event.

Reuters