After the bombshell of a powerful report saying match fixing was rife in tennis, the game’s stars were left picking up the pieces Tuesday at the sport’s first major tournament of the season.
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The Victorian Police Sporting Integrity Intelligence Unit interviewed at least one Australian tennis figure on Friday, enquiring about suspicious activity in the opening matches of the Australian Open.
World number 14 Milos Raonic bemoaned the fact the report was overshadowing the Australian Open and said he too had never been approached, on social media or otherwise, to fix a match.
Djokovic played down the report’s significance but he also said he was targeted in 2007 to throw a first-round match at St Petersburg.
Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-ranked player, said Monday that when he was breaking in as a professional several years ago, a member of his team was approached about fixing a match.
Expressing his disappointment over the issue, Cameron said that it was a serious concern that another sport is facing such allegations, and therefore, wants to see such issue being investigated by the independent authorities, Sport24 reported. Since then, the reports said, the ATP has repeatedly been warned about numerous same players, but hasn’t taken any action against them.
But William Hill’s Group Director of Security and Community Bill South said that regulated bookmakers were not to blame for match-fixing scandals.
Two news organizations say corruption in professional tennis continues because tennis authorities do not stop it.
Djokovic, who said he rejected an indirect offer of money to fix a match in 2006, said he was not aware of any match-fixing at the top of the sport.
“I would actually like to know if there was any match I was involved in that had irregular betting patterns”. Otherwise, tennis will go the way cricket has gone, suffer massive dents to its credibility, lose fans, and end up discrediting players who are above board. “As an athlete, I do everything I can to be not only great, but, you know, historic”.
“When the draw came out and I saw who I was playing, I was like, ‘Well, OK, I just hope to stay out there more than an hour, ‘” Konta said afterward, apparently as surprised as anyone after her victory over No. 8 seed Williams. “I was approached through people that were working with me at that time”, said the defending Australian Open champion, after beating Chung Hyeon in the first round.
“I think especially in the Grand Slams that are and always have been the most valued and respected and known tennis tournaments around the world throughout the history of this sport”.
Kermode said the integrity unit had been formed in 2008 as a joint initiative of the International TennisFederation, the ATP, the WTA and the Grand Slam Board to combat corruption in the wake of the Sopot investigation. It didn’t even get to me. “There’s more pressure on these people now maybe because of this story, which is a good thing”, he said. It found insufficient evidence of corrupt practice by either player. “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”.
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Tennis authorities on Monday rejected any suggestion information relating to match-fixing had been suppressed.
