The fallout over the tennis-match fixing scandal continues, with one South American player admitting throwing of matches is quite widespread in the sport.
After BBC and Buzzfeed broke a story claiming several top players, including quite a few playing right now at the Australian Open, had fallen under the shadow of suspicion, players have come out and admitted to being offered money by unknown persons in order to fix matches.
While all of them insisted the fixing incidents are isolated, with the tennis authorities also denying claims that match-fixing was commonplace, a South American player has come out and told the BBC, that is not exactly the case.
"This is like a secret on the tour that everybody knows, but we don't talk about it," the player, who wanted to remain anonymous, told BBC's World Have Your Say. "We just see it and keep working."
The former player also said most of the people on the circuit are aware of the goings on. "You know who is doing it, and who is not," he added. "As a player I know who is missing on purpose or returning a shot in the middle on purpose; who is trying, and who is not. So we work on this, we know."
When the reports came out, the thought process – even if the story said there were Grand Slam winners involved as well – was that most of the match-fixing problems probably come from lower-ranking tournaments, considering the amount of money the top players make. However, according to the South American, even top players are aware/involved.
"I started to believe [top players were involved] a few years ago, when a guy told me the result of the next two tournaments, he told me exactly who was going to win and how it was going to happen," he added.
"In the beginning I thought he was just bragging about it to make me fall for his game. But then I was laughing that every match was happening the way he had been telling me it was going to happen -- and I'm talking about a Masters series, where there are just big names there."
So, the obvious question is why doesn't the player go to the authorities? When asked the question, the South American said that was because the authorities also do not want to stop the problem.
"They [the authorities] know exactly who is doing it and, if they wanted to stop it, they could stop it today," he added. "It's super easy. They just don't want to do it."
The Tennis Integrity Unit refuted these claims from the player, while imploring anyone with such information to come forward. "The TIU and the tennis authorities absolutely reject any suggestion that evidence of match fixing has been suppressed for any reason," they said in a statement to the BBC. "The sport has a zero-tolerance approach which is enforced with the full powers of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program, which includes lifetime bans and punitive financial penalties.
"The TIU works closely with players to prevent corruption through education programmes and confidential reporting systems. The great majority of the 21,000 active professional players are good people of high integrity who abhor the suggestion that the sport they love is tainted with allegations of corruption.
"We invite the player behind the allegations to make contact with the TIU and to share the information he claims to have."
Meanwhile, the Chennai Open has also come under the scanner, after Daniel Koellerer, banned for life from the sport for match-fixing in 2011, revealed he was given money to throw a match.
"In Chennai, they offered me $50,000 to lose to Nikolay Davydenko in the first round and in Paris, they offered me double the money to lose in straight sets and also a bigger amount than $50,000 against [Janko] Tipsarevic in Moscow," he told the BBC. "I didn't even think about fixing the match and taking the money."
