Andre Agassi: Match-fixing wasn't on radar when I played

Andre Agassi has eight Grand Slam titles under his belt.

New Delhi: As match-fixing and corruption allegations have taken the tennis world by storm, former legend of the game Andre Agassi revealed that any such thing “never even made my radar” when he was on tour.

Agassi, who has eight Grand Slam titles under his belt, made it clear that he never had any brush with the sort of corruption that was alleged in recent media reports, while talking to The Associated Press.

“In 21 years I played professionally, I can say, either based on my naïveté or my focus on trying to be the best in the world, that it never made my radar at any stage in those 21 years,” Agassi said. “So I don’t know if I was unreachable, untouchable or just purely in my own world, but it never even made my radar, whatsoever.”

The American, who retired from the sport in 2006, also seems worried about these allegations as he feels it might hurt any sport badly. “I worry about that being a problem in any sport, because I think it poses an existential threat to the very fabric of what sports is about. I think every sport needs to take that incredibly seriously.”

Earlier, the BBC and BuzzFeed News had published reports saying tennis authorities failed to thoroughly investigate evidence of match-fixing involving more than a dozen players who have ranked in the top 50 over the past decade. No players were named in the reports.