LONDON -- French tennis player Arnaud Clement says he has refused money in the past to lose a match, but would not elaborate on Monday.
"It has happened to me, I won't say where or under what circumstances," Clement said after losing 6-4, 6-3 to Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in the first round of the Paris Masters.
"There was not a fraction of a second's hesitation (to refuse the proposal)."
The 2001 Australian Open finalist feared revealing more about the offer could lead to reprisals against him.
"That's why I don't want to say too much about it," Clement said. "And it's for that reason that I won't mention either the place or how it happened."
Clement thinks lower-ranked players struggling to make an impact may be under more pressure to accept such offers.
"The problem is for a player slightly lower in classification (ranking) or in a certain amount of financial difficulty," he said. "Even if he refuses, this can play on his mind during the match. It can upset him. That's not the case for me. To accept something like that is to betray the sport."
|
|
| Arnaud Clement says he didn't hesitate in rejecting fixing offers. (Getty Images) |
Betfair voided bets on a match in August for the same reason but found nothing wrong with Dmitry Tursunov's win over Boris Pashanski last week.
Tursunov, who ended up reaching the final, trailed Pashanski 6-4, 2-0 in the second round before advancing 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Despite the second-set deficit, there was still money being put on Tursunov to win.
"We investigate, as a matter of course, those markets that we have potential issues with," Betfair spokesman Adrian Murdock said on Monday.
Murdock said the investigation revealed that a specific bettor known to the company continued to back Tursunov. Betfair eventually settled all bets, in part because the unnamed bettor loses more than he wins.
"This guy is a net loser on tennis," Murdock said. "He's such a high volume bettor that it skewed the market a bit."
