Australian Open: Serena reaches 2nd round beating Camila Giorgi

It was very much business as usual for Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams at the Australian Open on Monday, even if allegations of widespread match-fixing cast a shadow over the opening day of the year’s first grand slam.

Fernando Verdasco of Spain throws a sweat band into the crowd as he celebrates after defeating compatriot Rafael Nadal in their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan….

Bouchard is playing in only her fourth tournament since sustaining a concussion when she fell in the dressing room at last year’s U.S. Open.

And he’s one of the players that people are talking about as a potential top player in the future.

Djokovic said before the tournament that his wife, Jelena, and Stefan would not make the trip to Melbourne for the Australian Open.

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.

The report claims all of the 16 players have ranked in the world’s top 50 and that more than half of them were playing in the Australian Open first round, which started on Monday.

The match lasted an hour and forty-five minutes, even though Giorgi briefly tied the second set before Williams put her away.

Nigel Willerton, head of the Tennis Integrity Unit which was formed in 2008 as a joint initiative of the International Tennis Federation, the ATP, the WTA and the Grand Slam Board, says “it would be unprofessional for me to comment on if any players here are being monitored”.

“I don’t think the shadow is cast over our sport”, the Serb said.

“I have been going non-stop since the London Olympics and, seeing that this is another Olympic year, I kind of wanted to start the year out really fresh and really go at it again as hard as I can. And I was able to serve really well and that really helped me”, she added. “I think it’s a bit unusual”.

The former world number one, who joined fellow seeds Sloane Stephens, Sara Errani and Ivo Karlovic on the sidelines, was stunned in three sets by Kazakhstan s Yulia Putintseva.

“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.

The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), which investigates allegations of wrong-doing in the sport, denied that evidence of match-fixing had been suppressed after the latest allegations were published.

It was fair to say that more of the suspicious matches have moved down the tennis tree to the second and third division of tennis, he said – but the issue was by no means historical.

The 28-year-old Serbian star, who’s won 10 Grand Slam titles, has played down reports claiming the game’s authorities have ignored match-fixing.

He said he did not approve of gambling on tennis matches.