Djokovic rubbishes `absurd` reports saying 2007 loss to Santoro was fixed

In the build-up to the match, however, Djokovic was forced to answer questions relating to claims made by Italian newspaper Tuttosport on Wednesday that he had “wanted” to lose against France’s Fabrice Santoro at the Paris Masters nine years ago.

“It’s not true”, said Djokovic. “What it is to say?”

“Who knows? They are going to tennis lessons because daddy says so, because I think it’s a good thing for them. I think it’s just absurd”, Djokovic said.

“There hasn’t been too many matches where top players lost in last decade or so in early rounds”.

A data visualization blog based in Amsterdam released a list of 15 names that did not include Djokovic but did include Lleyton Hewitt, the two-time grand slam champion who plans to retire when his current Australian Open run ends. “To go and watch tennis matches, I don’t know”.

Roddick wrote on Twitter: “Text I got from another former tour pro ‘we should see how numerous 16 betting guys we can name”.

Without a win against a player ranked in the top 80, the 19-year-old Frenchman was on a hiding to nothing against the dominant world No.1.

“Obviously this subject of conversation, I would say speculation, has come up, and it’s not a regular, I would say, subject of press conferences”.

World tennis was rocked this week when a player from South America got candid and revealed that match fixing was a common occurrence on the circuit and it wasn’t a secret as both players and the authorities that governed the game were aware of this but chose to do nothing about it.

“I would love to hear names”, the Swiss star said Monday at a postmatch news conference.

Asked if the latest allegations saddened him, Djokovic said: “Of course”.

When there is a lot of speculations – this is now the main story in tennis, in sports world – there’s going to be a lot of allegations.

Williams’ next opponent will be 18-year-old Russian Daria Kasatkina, who beat Croatia’s Ana Konjuh 6-4, 6-3, and she faces a potential quarterfinal match against 2015 finalist Maria Sharapova, who reached the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

“I think that certain media is just trying to create a story out of it without any proof”.

Groth is a new challenger, the pair never having met before in a competitive match, but the odds are firmly in favour of the world number two, whose thrashing of much-fancied youngster Alexander Zverev on Tuesday suggested the Scot is ready to go deep in Melbourne again.

“I think it’s a joke to deal with it. You know, obviously, yeah, there’s no possible way”, said Hewitt, after exiting in the second round. Players who sign up to fix matches are paid strictly in cash so that there is no financial trail to link they to these match fixing allegations.

“The TIU and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that evidence of match-fixing has been suppressed for any reason”, the organisation said in a statement.

Murray described this as a “little bit hypocritical”, going on to explain that while players were not allowed to be sponsored by these agencies, it was a matter of concern that tournaments were.