Russian Gives Players A Serve
The Sunday Age
Sunday January 13, 2008
CONTROVERSIAL Russian Nikolay Davydenko has denied ever being approached to throw a match and yesterday questioned the claims of former grand slam finalists Novak Djokovic and Arnaud Clement that they had been offered money to fix results.
Davydenko, the Australian Open's fourth seed, told The Sunday Age he was unsure if he would ever be able to clear his name, even in the event he is exonerated by the ATP's investigation into the irregular betting patterns in his match against Martin Vassallo Arguello in Sopot, Poland, last August.Despite five of Davydenko's matches featuring on a bookmaker-compiled dossier of 140 "suspect" contests, he continues to insist that neither he nor any of his associates had ever been contacted by anyone asking for information or seeking to influence the outcome of a match."Everything that is written is not true," he said. "I am clean and I am still playing tournaments and I try my best, try to win my matches."Nor, indeed, is he convinced by any of the many claims from fellow ATP players to emerge in recent months - including Djokovic, Clement, Dmitry Tursunov, Paul Goldstein and Michael Llodra."I cannot believe these guys," Davydenko said yesterday. "I think these guys try to be clean. They try to say 'somebody is asking me (to tank)', but I say no, so I have nothing to do with it'. People try to be some nice guy for the press, or for the people."Davydenko, in contrast, is well aware he is wearing the villain's black hat, but in one sense seems curiously satisfied with his notoriety. "In the press I am like the bad guy . . . not nice guy or good guy. But before I was nobody; now I (am) somebody. OK, it was not good, but some people already were thinking I'm the bad guy, 'the ice man' or something like this."Now my wife she said to me 'now you're somebody, doesn't matter good or bad, but you already somebody and people know you'."Davydenko featured in two more controversies later in the season, and admitted his lowest ebb came around the time of the St Petersburg and Paris ATP events in which umpires questioned his effort during matches, leading his lawyer to claim the 26-year-old was suffering from "classic signs of depression"."I tried to have the concentration mentally to play tennis, but at the end of the season I was completely dead," Davydenko said. "Maybe in this point I was destroyed."Claiming not to have even been aware that bets were paid out on incomplete matches, Davydenko said he believed he was a target because of his nationality - despite the fact he has lived in Germany since the age of 12 - and the somewhat murky reputation of retired Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov.Asked whether he believed the Russian mafia was involved in tennis, Davydenko said: "Do you have Australian mafia? Why you asking me about Russian mafia? Everything is bullshit. We don't have Russian mafia. Criminals (are) everywhere in the world. This thing 'Russian mafia' is a stupid thing for the press."Tennis Australia last month announced stringent new measures to combat match-fixing, including maximum 15-year jail terms. Davydenko declined to comment on whether such a punishment was appropriate, but reiterated that he was acting on legal advice not to release the telephone records of his wife Irina and brother-coach Eduard for privacy reasons. Logs from two of Davydenko's phones have already been examined.Davydenko's manager, Ronnie Leitgeb, hinted at legal action, and described the ATP's investigation as amateurish. "At the end of the day, there's a damage, and somebody has to pay for the damage," Leitgeb said. "If he has done something against the law then the ATP has to put it to a public court. But after six months, there's no action, it's quite strange."The ATP's chief executive, Etienne de Villiers, told the BBC on Friday that neither player was being investigated. "We've never ever said this is about Davydenko or Arguello. We said this is about an irregular betting pattern and we need to get to the bottom of it."
© 2008 The Sunday Age