Roger Federer wants alleged tennis match fixers named and shamed

“I was approached through people that were working with me at that time, that were with my team”, Djokovic said.

The initial report by BBC did not name players due to the lack of a direct link to players betting, but the report did say that there is a “core group” of 16 suspected male players who have been ranked in the top 50 in recent years, including a US Open champion, who could potentially be involved. Among other notable claims, it alleged that three possible fixed matches took place at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tournament in tennis.

A former senior British police officer told the BBC’s investigative partner, BuzzFeed News, that he wrote in a document to the ATP that the evidence supported his call for a more thorough inquiry.

Murray said, unlike world number one Novak Djokovic who was targeted earlier in his career, he had never been approached to fix a match.

A little-known Austrian player Daniel Koellerer, who was banned for life in 2011, had told BBC after he was barred that he was offered to throw a match in Chennai when he had come to play the tournament back in 2009.

The men’s world No. 1 and defending Australian Open champion rejected £110,000 to lose his particular singles match, and this came hot on the heels of various reports of match-fixing in tennis apparently being overlooked by the authorities and even allegations of a cover up over such incidents. “I try and block it and get rid of that stuff and focus on what you need to do”, he said.

Tennis is the latest sport to be marred by claims of corruption after football and athletics have both been recently embroiled in controversy. They quoted Mark Phillips – who worked on that enquiry – as saying “They could have got rid of a network of players that would have nearly completely cleared the sport up”.

“The Tennis Integrity Unit and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that any evidence of match fixing has been suppressed for any reason or isn’t being thoroughly investigated”. The two are pitted in the same half, setting them up for a potential semis showdown in a tournament, in which half of the players implicated in the report are reportedly competing.

“I was not approached directly”.

“In conjunction with world tennis we have developed leading anti-doping, disciplinary, anti-corruption and security policies”.

Federer was among the first to demand more information: “I would love to hear names”, the Swiss star said Monday at a post-match news conference.

Roger Federer also said it was hard to guess the significance of the report, but he welcomed the extra pressure that would now focus on match-fixers.

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While the International Tennis Federations (ITF) a year ago rolled out Betway as a sponsor for its flagship Davis Cup and Fed Cup competitions, prompting critics to suggest the relationship sends out the wrong message.

“From my knowledge and information about, you know, the match fixing or anything similar, there is nothing happening on the top level, as far as I know”, Djokovic said. “For me, that’s an act of unsportsmanship, a crime in sport, honestly”, he said Monday.

“The most important thing is that action is taken now in response and that the independent authorities get on with that Prime Minister David Cameron said”.