Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Nikolay Davydenko won his opening match, but all the questions were about the investigation.
NEW YORK (AP) — A white towel over his shoulders and a grim look on his face, Nikolay Davydenko autographed three balls and hit them into the stands Monday after winning his first-round match at the U.S. Open.
The man at the center of tennis’ gambling probe, the No. 4-ranked Davydenko has plenty on his mind besides smacking fuzzy yellow spheres these days. The Russian has not been questioned by ATP or outside investigators yet, but he expects to talk to them sometime when his schedule winds down after the Sept. 10-16 China Open.
“I got tired mentally in this situation,” Davydenko said after beating Jesse Levine of the United States 6-4, 6-0, 6-1, “and I don’t know if I will be able to regain my strength to fight and play well here.”
In early August, the ATP began an investigation after a British online gambling company, Betfair, voided all bets on a second-round match between Davydenko and 87th-ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina at Sopot, Poland.
Betfair received about $7 million in wagers on the match, 10 times the usual amount. Most of the money backed Arguello — including bets placed after he lost the first set to Davydenko, a semifinalist at the French Open twice and at the U.S. Open last year. Davydenko wound up winning the second set, then retiring in the third with a left foot injury.
Denies involvement
Nearly every question Davydenko was asked at his postmatch news conference Monday was about this one issue. As in recent weeks, he again denied any role.
“Never [bet] in my life,” he said. “I don’t know how you can [bet], and I don’t know guys who [bet]. ... I try to say every week, ‘I don’t do anything like this.’ You know, I never did.”
In the wake of the investigation, some men on the tour said word spread of past instances of players being approached about throwing matches.
“I have heard of stories of people getting sometimes money offered for losing a match and stuff. A lot of money,” top-ranked Roger Federer said recently. “So this is why it’s hard and this is where we have to have faith in the players saying they don’t want to accept this type of money because it’s bad money.”
Davydenko was asked about whether the Russian mafia has any influence in the sport.
“First, I don’t live in Moscow. I don’t know really guys from mafia in Russia, because I live from 15 years old in Germany. I don’t know German mafia,” he said with a smile. “Maybe if you go now to Brooklyn, you find Russian mafia here in New York.”