Fixing fire, Melburns
Australian Open rocked by allegations of match-fixing by 16 top players
Melbourne: A bombshell report alleging widespread corruption in tennis cast a shadow over the start of the Australian Open on Monday as officials vigorously denied suppressing evidence of match-fixing.
The BBC and BuzzFeed reported that a “core group” of 16 players who reached the top 50 in the past decade, including Grand Slam title-winners, had repeatedly caused suspicion but never faced action.
The claims, citing a leaked cache of secret files, broke as the year’s first Grand Slam got underway in Melbourne, and prompted a swift response from tennis officials.
As speculation swirled over the identities of the players under suspicion — eight of whom are reportedly in Melbourne — World No.1 Novak Djokovic said he was once approached to fix a match.
Djokovic was reportedly offered $200,000 to throw the match, in an incident which gives an insight into the murky world of match-fixing — which the Serb called “a crime in sport”.
Roger Federer also said it was difficult to guess the significance of the report, but he welcomed the extra pressure that would now focus on match-fixers.
“There’s more pressure on these people now maybe because of this story, which is a good thing,” Federer said.
The men’s tour and the sport’s anti-corruption body, the Tennis Integrity Unit, as well as Tennis Australia firmly rejected suggestions that any evidence was deliberately suppressed.
The report comes after allegations of doping cover-ups at athletics’ world body, the IAAF, and also follow the corruption scandals which have convulsed football’s Fifa.
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 in the encounter.
The report said the probe uncovered syndicates in Russia and Italy making hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on matches investigators thought to be fixed.
The key group of 16 suspect players had not been targeted in any crackdown, it said, questioning the effectiveness of the Tennis Integrity Unit .
BuzzFeed said players were targeted in hotel rooms at major tournaments and offered $50,000 or more to fix matches for the betting syndicates.
Other allegations included that a confidential report in 2008 recommended investigations into 28 players but the findings were not followed up.