Australian Open: Novak Djokovic forced to deny he lost 2007 match deliberately

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. “I think it’s just absurd”, Djokovic said. “You know, because I don’t believe the players are allowed to be sponsored by betting companies, but the tournaments are”.

Novak Djokovic branded match-fixing as a “crime in sport” and confirmed he was offered £110,000 in 2006 to lose a first round match in St Petersburg. The Serb lost the showdown 6-3 6-2, and on Wednesday dismissed any rumours of match-fixing involvement.

Halting any dream of a comeback, Djokovic sent down a thunderous succession of points to claim the match, but Halys will nearly certainly return to play under the spotlights of Rod Laver Arena.

Djokovic added: “Anybody can create a story about any match”. Two of the most higher-profile players – former top-50 players Daniele Bracciali and Potito Starace – were initially banned for life before their suspensions were lifted by the Italian Tennis Federation previous year. There haven’t been too many matches where top players lost in last decade or so in early rounds.

“The match could have gone either way”, Djokovic said in his on-court interview. Chinese qualifier Wang Qiang lost to Germany’s Anna-Lena Friedsam 6-3, 6-4, two days after her upset win over American Sloane Stephens.

No. 12 Belinda Bencic had a 6-3, 6-3 win over Timea Babos and 92nd-ranked Kateryna Bondarenko earned one of her biggest wins since returning from retirement after having a baby in 2013, beating two-time major victor and No. 23-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-1, 7-5.

“Each group has many guys who go to talk to players”, he said.

“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.

“I have been so sad about this the last few days”, the 18-time Grand Slam victor said.

According to one experienced tennis better, Djokovic was heavy favourite on the markets at the start of the match, which would have been entirely normal.

The 34-year-old Australian called it a “joke” and an “absolute farce” that he should be linked with the match-fixing allegations outlined by the original BBC and BuzzFeed report, which did not reveal any names. It’s just speculation. So I don’t think there is a story about it. It’s not true’.

“I’ve played him a couple of times”. “I speak Italian. I love Italy I guess”.

BuzzFeed News and the BBC claim that the sport has refused to take action against a network of 16 players despite repeated warnings.

In Australia, where the year’s first major tournament began Monday, representatives of tennis’s governing bodies held a news conference to deny that any evidence connected to match-fixing was suppressed.

Fifth-seeded Sharapova had little difficulty dispatching 105th-ranked Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2, 6-1 to stay on course for a quarter-final meeting with Williams.

Kvitova suffered from glandula fever a year ago and pulled out of the Australian Open warm-up events in Shenzhen and Sydney with a gastro-intestinal illness but paid full credit to Moscow-born Gavrilova – the only one of nine Australian women in the draw to survive the first round. “You don’t want these kind of subjects or speculations going around”, he said.