A new match-fixing scandal is rocking tennis again, and unfortunately Nikoloz Basilashvili’s name came out in a completely unfair witch-hunt for names.
According to reports, 135 tennis players are involved in a match-fixing scheme allegedly structured by the Armenian Mafia all over the world. Among these people, also a top30 player is involved. During the off-season there is a sort of “news-starvation” in tennis and therefore some websites became a bit too creative to start to name the possible top30 villain. It’s not sure how, but it was speculated that the top30 player had 3 titles under his belt and therefore Nikoloz Basilashvili’s name came through with Diego Schwartzman, Alex De Minaur, Matteo Berrettini, and Benoit Paire. These are definitely not the sort of people that you would expect to be involved in such a scheme.
That prompted the “creativity” of the social media that started to corroborate the allegations, also pointing at a match played by Nikoloz against Daniel Brands in Sofia. However, people forget that it’s rather normal for tennis players to have a rather bad day, and there is also an opponent on the other side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei3SWBQyqU8
Basilashvili’s response
The Georgian sensation was rightly so upset by the comments. He posted the following message on Facebook: “False information about me based on an incomprehensible Italian website. Such headlines from Georgian sports publications are very sad.”
Nikoloz Basilashvili reacts on Facebook to multiple Georgian websites headlines. ‘False infos about me (…) sad situation’. pic.twitter.com/80FF5rgsrE
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) December 16, 2019
Federer talking about clarity
The Swiss Legend was extremely vocal back in the day when he talked about match-fixing. This is a topic that discredits tennis and the huge effort that its players are putting into it.
Back in 2016, Roger commented: “I would love to hear names. Then at least it’s concrete stuff and you can actually debate about it. Was it the player? Was it the support team? Who was it? Was it before? Was it a doubles player, a singles player? Which slam?’”
Let’s hope to have clarity as soon as possible so as to avoid further allegations.
Nikoloz Basilashvili’s ranking and performance in 2019
Ranked no.26, Nikoloz played his last match on the 28th of October when he surrendered to Radu Albot 6-3 6-2 in the 1st round in Paris.
This year the Georgean has a 28-24 win-loss record. The Georgean conquered 1 title in Hamburg.
Roger Federer’s ranking and performance in 2019
Ranked no.3, Roger played his last match on the 16th of November when he had to surrender to Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3 6-4 in the semifinal in London.
This year Roger has a 51-10 win-loss record. Federer clinched 4 titles in 2019 in Dubai, in Miami, in Halle and in Basel. The Swiss was the finalist in Indian Wells and in Wimbledon.
Nikoloz Basilashvili and Roger Federer played each other 1 time. The head to head is 1-0 for Federer.
The last time that they played each other, Roger Federer won 6-2 6-1 6-2 in the 1st round in Melbourne (Australian Open) in January 2016.
