Former Austrian tennis player Daniel Kollerer, who was given a lifetime ban for match-fixing in 2011, revealed that he had been approached to throw a match in Chennai in an interview to BBC as part of the investigation in the tennis match-fixing scandal.

In response to the interviewer's question about whether he had ever been approached to throw a match in his playing career, Kollerer said, "Yeah, I got, like, one offer in Chennai and one in Paris. In Chennai, they were offering me 50,000 to lose against Davydenko in the first round..."

Play

News reports by the BBC and Buzzfeed News on Sunday claimed that 16 players ranked in the top 50 in international tennis over the last ten years were involved in match-fixing, some of them Grand Slam champions. The reports claimed they had access to files exposing widespread corruption, saying the players had, over the years, been flagged to the Tennis Integrity Unit for throwing matches. The news came out a day before the Australian Open is scheduled to start.

Both news agencies claimed that the files included details of an investigation committee set up by the men’s ATP tour. According to the papers, the tennis body was looking into betting syndicates in Russia, Italy and Sicily in 2007. "In a confidential report for the tennis authorities in 2008, the enquiry team said 28 players involved should be investigated but the findings were never followed up," said the BBC. Buzzfeed claims gamblers offered players more than $50,000 to lose matches on purpose.

However, while both reports claimed that the investigations had been pushed under the carpet despite repeated incidents, the ATP tour said it was “ludicrous” to suggest that tennis officials are not acting. The BBC also claimed that the European Sports Security Association, which monitors betting for bookmakers, sent the TIU intel on more than 50 suspicious matches last year.