Belgian Gilles Elseneer is the latest player to claim he was offered money to throw a match, during the Wimbledon tournament in 2005.
Belgian offered £70,000 to throw Wimbledon match.
Belgian tennis player Gilles Elseneer has claimed he was offered money to throw a match during the Wimbledon tournament in 2005, according to the English press, as the betting scandal within tennis continues.
The Times has quoted Elseneer as saying that he was offered around £70,000 to deliberately lose a first round match at Wimbledon against Potito Starace, but immediately refused the advances.
Elseneer, who says the offer was made soon after his qualification for the event, told The Times: "I had my honour as a player to protect and Wimbledon meant everything to me.
"They said I should take my time and give them a reply the next day but I only needed a couple of minutes to realise it was impossible for me to contemplate."
Elseneer went on to win the match at SW19 without dropping a set, but the news comes after reports that world number three
Novak Djokovic was offered money to throw a match.
Official response
ATP chairman and president Etienne de Villiers admits he is not surprised by players being approached to throw games, but insists the sport will fight hard against any threat.
"I am not surprised players are being approached in sport today but what I care about is their reaction," said de Villiers.
"Where they stand in terms of their responsibility to the sport and what the consequences are.
"It is a disaster for tennis if anyone considers that the sport is corruptible.
"Gamblers like to have information nobody else has and we have to fight tooth and nail to ensure we have a level playing field."
De Villiers went on to outline the Tour policy regarding anybody who is deemed to have undermined the sport's integrity.
"We have Draconian penalties," he said.
"We can fine a player up to £50,000 for transgressing our code and impose a maximum lifetime ban if it continues.
"If we find anyone, be it a player, someone in their entourage, anyone, the maximum ban will be imposed. There is zero tolerance."
Haas not happy
Germany's Tommy Haas also says he has heard stories of potential match-fixing going on in the sport, and says the authorities must act to avoid the image of tennis being tarnished.
"You hear stories and you wonder why we aren't watching out for these guys at tournaments," Haas told Reuters.
"There have been cases where it's quite obvious. We've had meetings about gambling... those who do it shouldn't get away with it."
A rare betting scandal in tennis emerged last month after internet betting firm Betfair voided bets on world number four Nikolay Davydenko's match against Martin Vassalo Arguello due to unusual betting patterns where more than $7 million was bet on the result of the match.
Davydenko, who denies any involvement, won the first set, but odds on the Russian suddenly drifted as all the money was placed on Arguello, before Davydenko then retired injured with the match level at one set all.
There have been several reports with anonymous players claiming that they knew of matches that had been thrown, but Haas, whilst claiming to have heard of such matches, insists the investigators must be the ones to sort out the problem.
"I've not experienced any of this but I've heard about it from other players. It's the obvious countries that we have to watch out for," he said, without elaborating.
"But we don't hear much about the problems so if they (investigators) can't find anything, we have to give players the benefit of the doubt, because we don't yet know who is behind it."
