Wimbledon champion fuels debate
Wimbledon champion fuels debate 
From correspondents in Paris
Former Australian Captain October 31, 2007
WIMBLEDON doubles champion Michael Llodra has added fuel to the debate about match-fixing in tennis by saying he was asked to throw a match four years ago.
“I was in my hotel room and somebody called to ask me not to try too hard the next day,” Llodra said on French radio.
“That was four years ago.
“I said ‘no’ and hung up.
Now, with what has happened since, I think maybe be I was one of the first players to have been approached.”
Llodra won this year’s Wimbledon title with fellow Frenchman Arnaud Clement, a former top 10 singles player who said on Monday that he had been approached to throw a match.
“We have the feeling that a lot of people have been approached, there’s a lot of talk about it on the circuit,” Llodra said.
“Wherever there is money, you have crooks. It’s difficult to stop because there is a powerful ring behind it.”
The threat of match-fixing was being taken very seriously at the BNP Paribas Masters Paris this week, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) said.
Match betting was being watched for suspicious patterns, FFT general director Jean-Francois Vilotte said.
Matches were also being recorded and analysed by former players and ATP supervisors while players were banned from betting at the venue, he added.
The governing bodies of tennis said earlier this month that they had full confidence in the integrity of the sport but they admitted there was a threat from potential match-fixing.
Tennis came under the spotlight in August when a match between Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko and lowly-ranked Argentine Martin Vassallo Arguello in Poland was voided by British online betting exchange Betfair because of unusual betting patterns.
Davydenko, who has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, was then fined $US2000 ($2175) for not trying hard enough during his shock defeat by Croatian qualifier Marin Cilic at the St Petersburg Open last week.
Reuters