“A nice opening match with real Australian summer conditions”, said Djokovic after embarking on his quest to match Roy Emerson’s record of six Australian Open crowns. The report says the ATP has ignored warnings about players’ involvment in match-fixing despite getting tips from foreign police, bookmakers and investigators.
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Also advancing on the women’s side were No. 9 Karolina Pliskova, No. 11 Timea Bacsinszky, No. 15 and 2015 semifinalist Madison Keys, No. 18 Elina Svitolina, No. 19 Jelena Jankovic, No. 20 Ana Ivanovic and No. 21 Ekaterina Makarova, who beat Venus Williams in the first round here in 2014.
Match fixing scandals have rocked football’s Serie A in 2006 and global cricket in 2010 but no major cases have led to penalties in top-tier tennis.
Djokovic, who also won three grand slams past year, has been far more active than Williams in recent months but has not been beaten since August, a run that never looked like ending in his 115-minute clash with South Korean teenager Chung Hyeon.
“I was approached through people that were working with me at that time, that were with my team”.
“I don’t think the shadow is cast over our sport”, the Serb said.
However, the biggest fine of the tournament has been handed to former world No. 1 Venus Williams, who copped a $US5000 fine for not fronting a mandatory post-match media conference on Tuesday.
Williams though was taking nothing for granted in only her second tour-level match since the US Open in September. You know, that match is done with. “I mean, it’s the least I expect to be in the third round of a Slam, obviously, so I’m pumped up, playing well, feeling good”.
Federer will next play Grigor Dimitrov, who has a style that has been compared with Federer’s, after the No. 27-seeded player beat Marco Trungelliti 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.
“My response is that there’s always going to be, especially these days when there is a lot of speculation – this is now the main story in tennis, in sports world – there’s going to be a lot of allegations”, Djokovic said.
Long a baseline blaster rather than an all-court player with a delicate touch, the five-times grand slam champion had enough comfort against Sasnovich to launch a few drop-shots from the baseline, with mixed results.
It is alleged that in 2007 tennis authorities were presented with an examination of 26,000 matches, three of them at Wimbledon, which contained enough evidence to root out offenders – but no action was taken. This was more of an inexperienced player today, but still unsafe and still a good player.
“Leaving here is all positive I think”, Evans said. But I’m not entitled to really talk about it. I can give my opinion. He had Amelie Mauresmo, a new mother, back in his coaching corner for the match and was happy not to get any mid-match news from home.
No. 5 Maria Sharpova, who lost to Williams in last year’s final, breezed through her first-round match 6-1, 6-3 against Nao Hibino of Japan.
First seed Serena Williams is the favourite to win the Australian Open now that several of the top seeds have been knocked out including world No. 2 Simona Halep.
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Kei Nishikori reached the third round of the Australian Open for the sixth consecutive year, beating Austin Krajicek 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3 on Margaret Court Arena.
