Novak Djokovic has categorically denied claims made by an Italian newspaper that he threw a match against the now-retired Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in the Paris Masters in 2007.
The world No1 was made aware of the report published in Tuttosport Wednesday after his 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (3) second round victory over Quentin Halys at the Australian Open, and said the allegations were “not true”.
This comes just two days after an investigation made by the BBC and BuzzFeed claimed to have uncovered evidence that implicates 16 current and former top-50 players, including ex-grand slam singles and doubles champions, in match-fixing over the past decade.
Prompted to respond to the allegations made by the Tuttosport report, Djokovic said: “My response is that there’s always going to be – especially these days 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 said everything I needed to say two days ago. You know, until somebody comes out with the real proof and evidence, it’s only a speculation for me.”
Djokovic had confirmed on Monday that he was offered $200,000 to fix a match in St. Petersburg but that it was immediately turned down before the news even reached him.
The match mentioned in the Italian newspaper came days after Djokovic had pulled out his wisdom teeth and he was not feeling well when he faced Santoro in Paris-Bercy.
“I’ve lost that match. I don’t know if you’re trying to create a story about that match or for that matter any of the matches of the top players losing in the early rounds, I think it’s just absurd,” said Djokovic calmly.
He added: “Anybody can create a story about any match. That’s my point. There hasn’t been too many matches where top players lost in last decade or so in early rounds. You can pick any match that you like that the top player lost and just create a story out of it.”
When told what the Tuttosport article said, Djokovic said: “It’s not true.”
