Tennis Star Novak Djokovic Reveals Being Offered $200,000 To Lose Game; ATP Denies ‘Match-Fixing’ Cover-Up Claims
Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic revealed someone tried to offer him $200,000 to lose a game at a tournament in St. Petersburg, an incident that took place early in his professional career.
"I was approached through people that were working with me at that time," Djokovic said, as noted by ESPN Tuesday.
He went on, "It made me feel terrible because I don't want to be anyhow linked to this kind of - you know, somebody may call it an opportunity. For me, that's an act of unsportsmanship, a crime in sport honestly. I don't support it. I think there is no room for it in any sport, especially in tennis."
Meanwhile, a report by BuzzFeed and BBC said that match-fixing has been prevalent in men's tennis. The report added that the governing bodies of tennis reportedly covered up or ignored the evidence linked to the issue.
However, the Association of Tennis Professional denied the allegations, as per Huffington Post Monday.
"The Tennis Integrity Unit and tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that evidence of match-fixing has been suppressed for any reason or isn't being thoroughly investigated," said Chris Kermode, ATP head.
Meanwhile, tennis stars Roger Federer and Serena Williams expressed their disappointment with the match-fixing controversy.
"I would love to hear names," said Federer. "Then at least it's concrete stuff and you can actually debate about it. Was it the player? Was it the support team? Who was it? Was it before? Was it a doubles player, a singles player? Which slam?"
"It's so all over the place. It's nonsense to answer something that is pure speculation. Like I said, it's super serious and it's super important to maintain the integrity of our sport. So how high up does it go?" Federer added.
Serena Williams also commented, "I can only answer for me. I play very hard, and every player I play seems to play hard. I think that as an athlete, I do everything I can to be not only great, but historic. If that's going on, I don't know about it. You know, I'm kind of sometimes in a little bit of a bubble."