Djokovic said the offer was rejected and that he didn’t even play in the tournament.
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“I would love to hear names”, he said.
Novak Djokovic opened his Australian Open title defense with a straight-sets win, before going to the defense of his sport as reports of match-fixing overshadowed the first day of the season-opening Grand Slam.
Nigel Willerton from the Integrity Unit declined to comment on whether any players taking part in the Australian Open were now being monitored for links to corruption.
A South American tennis player claims match-fixing is “a secret on the tour everybody knows”.
In the investigation, which will reveal further findings in an edition of File on 4 on Radio 4 tonight, it is alleged that the tennis authorities have been regularly warned about the activities of a group of 16 players, all of whom have been ranked in the world’s top 50 and some of whom are Grand Slam champions.
The leaked files include details of an investigation into a 2007 match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello, which found insufficient evidence of corrupt practice. He went on to say that the sport has come a long way since 2007 and that he doesn’t think that match-fixing is a problem at the top levels of tennis.
Yet its list of catches is very modest for a global sport that one study says is the third most vulnerable to betting fraud through match-fixing, because of the proliferation of low-level tournaments and the difficulty of proving that any player has lost deliberately.
For the first time at Melbourne Park, electronic advertising boards at Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena and Hisense Arena display the name “William Hill” during breaks in play. “I was not approached directly, I was approached through people that were with my team”, he said. “It didn’t even get to me”, he added. “If that’s going on, I don’t know about it. You know, I’m kind of sometimes in a little bit of a bubble”. “I think that as an athlete, I do everything I can to be not only great, but historic”.
“I guess I can only speak for myself, but we want to succeed at it by improving, by getting better, by beating our own best, and not by anything else”.
“It’s a fine line”. “Whether you want to have betting companies involved in the big tournaments in our sport or not, it’s hard to say what’s right and what’s wrong”. Top tennis officials have categorically denied this.
Chris Kermode, head of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), rejected the media report’s claims but added: “While the BBC and BuzzFeed reports mainly refer to events from about 10 years ago, we will investigate any new information”.
“Betting happens all across the world in all the sports”.
Right then, give us the deets – who are the players involved?
Asked if tennis authorities could do more to prevent fixing, Federer said: “You can always do more”.
The Serbian, a 10-time Grand Slam victor, had claimed that his team had been approached ahead of the competition in the Russian city, which he eventually did not participate in.
But fellow Frenchman Benneteau said: “It is more risky for tennis than doping”.
“I would take out the betting. This is a really high level of tennis, so it’s very hard for me to see or to notice”.
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For No. 13 Milos Raonic the focus on gambling was an unwanted distraction.
