Sport | Tennis
Davydenko says he nearly put a stop to his tennis career
The ATP launched a match-fixing investigation of Davydenko’s match against an unheard of player, Martin Vassalo Arguello in Sopot in August 2007
- By Alaric Gomes, Senior Reporter
- Published: 10:45 November 29, 2009
London: Nikolay Davydenko has admitted that he nearly put a stop to his tennis career following allegations about him allegedly being involved in match-fixing on the ATP World Tour.
“Every tournament I played it was very tough to play. I would have liked to stopped tennis for a couple of months. I just didn’t have the will to play,” Davydenko admitted.
“Maybe I have a good coach and I got some real support from my family. They gave me a chance really to forget everything and concentrate on the tennis. After that I just tried to forget everything quickly and keep tennis as a priority,” the Russian admitted.
The ATP launched a match-fixing investigation of Davydenko’s match against an unheard of player, Martin Vassalo Arguello in Sopot in August 2007 after several large bets were placed at an online British gambling company Betfair in Argüello’s favour.
Davydenko won the first set 6-2 and then withdrew from the match during the third set with a foot injury. At this stage it did not make sense to Betfair that such a heavy betting volume would go in Argüello's direction at that point of time in the match.
Since then it has been revealed that nine people based in Russia had bet $1.5m on Davydenko losing while two unknown people would gain $6m from the loss. A total of $7 m was wagered on the match, ten times the usual amount. Due to these irregularities, all bets were voided.
In September 2008, Davydenko, along with Arguello, was cleared of any involvement in match-fixing. And Davydenko had something else to prove. “Maybe we Russians are very tough mentally,” Davydenko quipped.
Maybe the Russian proved this at its best on Saturday when he got past the world’s best player in a gruelling three sets at the O2. “I had beaten everybody in top-10, except Federer,” Davydenko said.
“Maybe I was thinking this win will come in 2010 or in 2011. But for this to come in 2010, at the end of the season in 2009 itself is a great feeling anf ahievement,” Davydenko stated.
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