Aussie star asked to fix match
Young Australian tennis star Thanasi Kokkinakis says people have approached him on social media asking him to tank matches.
The revelation came a day after world number one Novak Djokovic said he was offered $200,000 to throw a match around 10 years ago.
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Speaking on radio station 3AW, Kokkinakis said the offers would be left on his Facebook page, and said he tried to block them from his mind.
“Not face-to-face, but on social media, you read some stuff on your Facebook page,” the 19-year-old said.
“Just these randoms from nowhere saying ‘I’ll pay you this much money to tank a game’.
“I try and block it and get rid of that stuff and focus on what you need to do.”
Kokkinakis also said he copped abuse and threats on social media when matches didn’t go his way.
“It’s interesting – you get a lot of stuff if you lose a match that maybe the bettors or something think you should win – you just get abused on social media,” he said.
“It’s a very common thing. For tennis players, and I’d assume other sports, it’s a very common thing.
“You just try and block it away and there’s no time for that in this sport.”
Raonic wants culprits ‘weeded out’
Brisbane International winner Milos Raonic told media after his first round Australian Open win he believed efforts to stamp out match-fixing in tennis were sufficient.
“I believe there is a hotline that we have as an option really to confront if this does come up,” Raonic said.
“I think that there is enough, at least from what I understand and from my personal experiences, being done regarding it.”
But Raonic was equally keen to see any potenital corruption eradicated from the “beautiful” sport of tennis.
“I don’t think anybody in tennis believes and stands for it. If the story has any validity to it, I hope the people that may be weeded out,” he said.
“Tennis is a beautiful game. There are many great things about it.
“It’s a little bit, sorry for the language, shitty to read that and the attention … is more on that than the Australian Open, which is one of the four biggest events we play.”
Former US star Andy Roddick took to Twitter to have his say on the ongoing match-fixing scandal, claiming he was never approached to fix a match throughout his match.
Roddick said he had received a text from an unnamed former tour pro who believed they could guess “at least eight or nine” of the 16 players suspected of being involved.
Roddick went on to state that world number three Roger Federer was “no chance” to be involved, but that in the age of social media “secrets don’t exist”.
He also said that any player who did accept money to fix a game was “without a moral compass”.
Text I got from another former tour pro “we should see how many of the 16 betting guys we can name. I think I got at least 8-9. “
— andyroddick (@andyroddick) January 19, 2016
-with ABC/AAP