(Newswire.net — January 19, 2016) –In the last ten years, 16 of 50 of the best tennis players in the world were suspected of rigging tennis matches. Some of them are Grand Slam champions, while eight of them are from the list of players at the Australian Open, reports the BBC.
The best player in the world, Novak Djokovic, has spoken about the files and said that he has heard the story and read that it mentioned some players who are no longer active.
“Of course, there is no room for any match fixing or corruption in our sport. We ‘re trying to keep it as clean as possible. We have, I think, a sport that has evolved and upgraded our programs and authorities to deal with these particular cases. I don’t think the shadow is cast over our sport”, said the top-ranked men’s player, reports the Herald Sun.
“People are talking about names, guessing who these players are. But there’s no real proof or evidence yet of any active players, for that matter. As long as it’s like that, it’s just speculation. So I think we have to keep it that way”, said the Serbian tennis player who spoke about being indirectly offered $200,000 to set up a match during the St.Petersburg tournament nine years ago.
Djokovic explained that he was not asked directly: “I was approached through people that were working with me at that time, that were with my team. Of course, we threw it away right away.”
“I would like to hear the name. I would love to hear names.”, said Swiss tennis player Roger Federer, after the BBC rocked the tennis world with a new series of articles about the false matches.
“Then at least it’s concrete stuff and you can actually debate about it. Was it the player? Was it the support team? Who was it? Was it before? Was it a doubles player, a singles player? Which Slam?”, asked Federer according to NY Daily News.
The leaders of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) strongly denied allegations that it did not adequately react to the information that some of the players may have been involved in the match fixing.
ATP executive chairman & president Chris Kermode held a press conference in Melbourne, after the BBC report.
“The Tennis Integrity Unit and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that any evidence of match fixing has been suppressed for any reason or isn’t being thoroughly investigated. While the BBC and BuzzFeed reports mainly refer to events from about 10 years ago, we will investigate any new information and we always do,” said Chris Kermode.
The BBC report states that the investigation led to new information and talks with dozens of people, but no names have been released except Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello.
Their match in 2007 in Sopot was interrupted and all payements canceled due to suspicious activity. This sparked an investigation by the ATP into whether Davydenko’s match was fixed. Kermode reported that there must be concrete evidence in order for a player to be suspended and the investigation in the middle of Sopot in 2007 had not brought sufficient evidence.
The ATP executive chairman & president pointed out that the ATP does not tolerate corruption.