The Serb vehemently denied a report in Italy that he intentionally lost a match at the 2007 Paris Masters. And Aussie legend Lleyton Hewitt on Thursday threatened to sue anyone claiming he has fixed matches after his name was linked with unusual betting patterns.
World No 2 Murray, who is seeded to meet defending champion Djokovic in a rematch of last year’s final, said: “I think for anyone who is innocent, whose name gets talked about with that stuff, then you for sure feel sorry for them if they have done nothing wrong. Especially during an event like this, it’s very distracting.
“But you also want to be competing in a clean sport as well. So sometimes asking questions, and the players being open about it and responding to it, and the people who are high up in the ATP and the ITF and TIU talking also about it, is also a good thing.
“If it’s never discussed and nobody ever hears a thing about it, I don’t think that good either. Maybe some people see it’s negative for the sport in some ways. I think some positives can come from it as well, providing the appropriate people act in the right way and are proactive with whatever they are doing moving forward.”
The BuzzFeed News and BBC investigation claimed 16 unnamed players were regularly involved with matches with suspect betting patterns. A further statistical analysis of the data done by one website has claimed to identify 15 of them, including Hewitt.
The former world No 1, who retired after losing in the second round of the Australian Open to David Ferrer on Monday, said: “I think it’s a joke to deal with it. Obviously, yeah, there’s no possible way. I know my name’s now been thrown into it. I don’t think anyone here would think that I’ve done anything corruption or match fixing. It’s just absurd.
“For anyone that tries to go any further with it, then good luck. Take me on with it. Yeah, it’s disappointing. I think throwing my name out there with it makes the whole thing an absolute farce.”
Murray reached the third round without dropping a set by beating Sam Groth 6-0 6-4 6-1 with the help of six lobbed winners. It took the Aussie No 3 43 minutes to win his first game.
The Scot is guaranteed to meet another home player in the fourth round but next up is No 32 seed Joao Sousa, who Murray has beaten in all six of their previous meetings. But the Portuguese No 1 warned he is in the form of his life after spending the off-season training with Rafa Nadal. “I think we did great work,” he said.
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