Novak Djokovich says he rejected overtures to throw a match several years ago, and has heard nothing about the subject since.
Advertisement
ATP Tour executive chairman, Chris Kermode, has already rejected suggestions that the body has not been vigilant enough.
An investigation was set up by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 2007 after an extremely suspect match between Nikolay Davydenko (below) and Martin Vassallo Arguello, following which both players were cleared of any wrongdoing.
On Monday, Kermode said the integrity unit had been formed in 2008 as a joint initiative of the International Tennis Federation, the ATP, the WTA and the Grand Slam Board to combat corruption in the wake of the Sopot investigation.
BuzzFeed journalist Heidi Blake defended her report on ABC radio, saying tennis authorities had to be more transparent.
Federer, the most successful male player of all time with 17 majors, said it was “super serious” for the sport, but said he would be surprised if top players were involved.
Each of the players have been ranked in the top 50 in the world across the past decade and despite several of their matches being deemed suspicious, all have been allowed to continue competing.
The bombshell report was released on the eve of the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the season, which started in Melbourne on Monday.
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.
“I would love to hear names”, Federer said, according to the Associated Press.
Mark Phillips, one of the investigators mentioned in the report, told the BBC that the evidence against the perpetrators was “really strong”, revealing that there is a good chance to determine the root of the match-fixing controversy.
The allegations, BuzzFeed explained, are based on a cache of leaked documents and “analysis of the betting activity on 26,000 matches and interviews across three continents with gambling and match-fixing experts, tennis officials, and players”.
TIU director of integrity Nigel Willerton said they could ask for players’ electronic communication devices, though those requests could be refused.
Advertisement
“We have, I think, a sport [that has] evolved and upgraded our programs and authorities to deal with these particular cases”, he said. “But the important issue here is that we stamp out any form of corruption in tennis”.
