Shocked by Mahesh Bhupathi's disclosure that he was approached to fix a Davis Cup match early in his career, the All India Tennis Association on Tuesday decided to conduct an enquiry into the claim.
"It came as a surprise for us. It is a serious issue and the matter has got international publicity. The ITF must be expecting some answers. AITA has decided to conduct an enquiry," AITA secretary-general Anil Khanna told a press conference in New Delhi.
"The enquiry committee will speak to the players who have played Davis Cup since 1996, the captains and the coaches of the teams to understand if any such incident other than what Mahesh has mentioned had taken place," he said.
Asked how the AITA could be kept in the dark about the incident by Bhupathi for such long time, Khanna said the matter will be looked into.
"It will be taken up at the Executive Committee meeting of the AITA. I think we need a code of conduct for players where they will be asked to report to captain about all important matters," he said.
On what could have provoked Bhupathi to make the revelations after such a long time, he said, "I have not spoken to him yet, therefore I would not like to speak on that."
Khanna, however, asserted the game is clean in India and no such incident has ever happened in the country.
"Tennis is clean in India. If you look at the Davis Cup results, you will see our players have competed well. It indicates that performance has been upright.
"This is just a stray incident that Mahesh has mentioned. We have to protect the image of the country and I would like to say to the ITF this is just a stray incident and we feel this does not happen here at all," Khanna said.
Khanna also said the ITF, ATP and WTA are all concerned about match-fixing in the game.
"WTA is seized of the matter. The ITF is serious about this and they are trying to keep it (tennis) clean. Even they rejected a sponsorship offer for the Davis Cup from a betting company, despite that being a legal one.
"The ITF Board did not want to be associated with any betting company," he said.
Bhupathi, who turned pro in 1995 and won as may as ten Grand Slam titles, on Monday said he was contacted over telephone by an unknown caller "very early" in his career.
'I was contacted [to throw a match] very early in my career but I did not entertain the call,' he said.
It is the first time that an Indian player has revealed that he was approached to fix a match.International tennis has been hit by match-fixing and betting in recent times, with Alessio Di Mauro of Italy being banned for nine months till August 2008 and fined US $60,000 for betting on the Internet.
Two other Italian players Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali also recently received suspensions and fines for gambling on tennis matches.
The Association of Tennis Professionals, the game's world governing body, is also probing last year's match between world number four Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and Argentine Martin Vassallo Arguello.
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