Chennai Open is clean: Karti Chidambaram

While premier tournaments like Wimbledon came under the scanner, India’s only ATP event — Chennai Open — was also named as one of the tournaments where match fixing could have taken place. 

The Chennai Open is no stranger to match fixing controversies. In 2009, Daniel Koellerer claimed that he was offered a bribe to fix matches at Chennai and Koellerer lost in the first round to top seed Nikolay Davydenko, the world number five at the time. Had the result been the converse, speculation could have been rife. However, the vice-president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) Karti Chidambaram dismissed claims of an unethical tournament. 

 

“These allegations are unfortunate. No specific incident or specific player has been named with regard to the Chennai Open. The Tennis Integrity Unit of the ATP is fully geared to deal with these issues.  If any player is found guilty the ATP, I am sure, will take the strictest action. 

There is no cause for concern about the integrity of the matches at the Chennai Open,” he said. Hiten Joshi, CEO of TNTA, concurred with Karti and said quality tennis dished out year after year stands a testimony to a clean tournament.   

“We have had players performing extremely well under gruelling competitive circumstances. We have nothing to worry and we believe that the scandal is out of our focus,” Joshi added.