Roger Federer Says Players Suspected of Match Fixing should be Named

Roger Federer, the world's No. 3 singles player, believes that all of the names of the players suspected of match fixing in Tennis should be released.

"I would love to hear names," Federer said in response to a joint Buzzfeed News and BBC report. "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?"

The 17-time Grand Slam Champion added, "It's super serious and it's super important to maintain the integrity of our sport. So how high up does it go? The higher it goes, the more surprised I would be."

Federer is through to Round 2 after he defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2.

According to the report, which was published on Monday, the first day of the Australian Open, the authors accused the governing bodies in Tennis of covering up evidence tied to match fixing.
The report also suggested that grand slam winners and players in the top 50 were among the 16 players "who have repeatedly been reported for losing games when highly suspicious bets have been placed against them."

The authors added that these players have not faced sanctions at all. More than half of them are currently playing in the Australian open and one of the players is a top-50 player who is "suspected of repeatedly fixing his first set."

"They could have got rid of a network of players that would have almost completely cleared the sport up," investigator Mark Phillips said. "We gave them everything tied up with a nice pink bow on top and they took no action at all."

The chairman of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Chris Kermode has denied all allegations, stating that match fixing was never covered up. He stressed that the Tennis Integrity Unit is "constantly vigilant and not complacent."

The authors behind the article reported that the information on match fixing came "from inside the sport." The authors wrote that their report "is based on a cache of leaked documents from inside the sport - the Fixing Files - as well as an original analysis of the betting activity on 26,000 matches and interviews across three continents with gambling and match-fixing experts, tennis officials, and players."

The information, which pointed to a 2007 ATP investigation into a match that took place in Sopot, Poland, revealed that the ATP had uncovered suspicious levels of betting, involving gambling organizations in Russia and Italy, as well as players. The ATP, however, allegedly did not follow up on these cases.

Since the report was published, world number 1, Novak Djokovic recalled an incident that occurred in 2007 when he and his team at the time were approached about the possibility of throwing a match in Russia.

"I was not approached directly. I was approached through people that were working with me at that time," the Serbian said. "Of course, we (rejected) it right away. It didn't even get to me - the guy that was trying to talk to me, he didn't even get to me directly. There was nothing out of it."

Djokovic added that he hopes match fixing has not been going on over the past few years.