FEW top players feel more at ease discussing the big issues in the sport than Andy Murray and yesterday the Scot said he hoped the latest reports of rumoured match-fixing in tennis would be turned into a positive.

Murray, who began his bid for a first Australian Open title with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 win over Germany’s Alexander Zverev, joined those asking for names and for greater transparency so that everyone knows what is happening to address the problem.

“I feel like stories like this, although they're tough for sports, it does sort of force them to react a little bit and maybe do more about it, invest more in the TIU (Tennis Integrity Unit)

“Although sports don't necessarily want to hear about tennis or their own sport being involved in anything like this, it can be positive in some ways, as well, if they react properly.”

Roger Federer was among those who called for those players implicated in the BBC/BuzzFeed report to be named but Murray said he understood why they had kept the names quiet.

“That’s a hard one,” he said. “As a player I would like to know. I would really like to know.

“But in some ways you have to protect some players. I’m not saying in all cases but in some cases, a player hasn’t done anything wrong so if names come out and someone is innocent then that also does kind of stay with you for your career as well.

“Selfishly, I would like to know the names and the matches so that I could watch the matches myself and see and make up my own mind by watching. Because as a professional, I think you could tell.”

“I haven’t personally played a match where I’ve thought something was up. And I haven’t really watched a live match and thought ‘this is being fixed’.

“I’ve heard about certain matches where something might have been going on, I’ve watched them and watched replays of them, and as a player, I’ve thought ‘that doesn’t look right’.

“Because we as players can see if something was going wrong. And I would actually like to know if there was any match that I was involved in that had had irregular betting patterns or anything like that. I would like to know about that as well.”

Murray knows, though, that irregular betting patterns do not automatically mean match fixing and that proving it is another thing altogether. That, he said, was the job of the TIU.

“No sports are clean of doping and none are clean of fixing,” he said. “And it's not just sport, it’s life in general. People cheat, a lot of people cheat in other jobs as well. People do it in relationships as well.

“It's just that when it does happen, you want people to be prosecuted, you want them to be banned and you want them to be found out.

“I, as a player, can't ban people. It's up to the authorities to do something about it. And you just want to make sure that they are.”

Things on the court were far more serene, for Murray at least, as he cruised past Zverev, conserving energy with a controlled, dominant performance.

His next opponent, the big-serving Australian Sam Groth, joked that he hoped Murray’s wife, Kim, goes into labour before they play their match, a scenario that would see the Scot return home immediately.

Murray has been in full tournament mode, despite the imminent arrival of his first child, but he admits his nerves have been fragile whenever the phone goes.

“Every time I get a phone call or every time the phone buzzes or like this morning I ordered room service and I got a phone call to my room that woke me up and I completely panicked,” he said.

“I answered the phone and they were like: “We’re just at your door with the room service.” I couldn’t hear them because there’s a door in between my bedroom and where they were knocking.”

Groth still holds the record for the fastest ever serve and though Murray beat him easily enough at the Davis Cup, with a home crowd cheering on their man, he expects a tough examination.

“He is a big guy with a big, big game,” he said. “Obviously he spends a lot of time up at the net so he knows where to position himself and makes it tough for you, so it will be a tough match. If he serves well he’s not easy to break.

But if Murray was in cruise control, Rafael Nadal has lost his grip on the wheel.

The 14-times grand slam champion was beaten 7-6, 4-6, 3-6, 7-6, 6-2 by his fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, a reverse of their 2009 epic semi-final here and a real setback to Nadal, just when he looked to be rediscovering some of his best form.

“Obviously it is tough, especially because it is not like last year that I arrived here playing bad and feeling myself not ready for it,” a very downbeat Nadal said.

“Today I was not ready to compete the way that I was practising, so not happy with that. That's it. I hope the next time I can compete better than what I did today, because I was playing good.”

Britain’s other two men were both beaten, though, with Dan Evans trounced by Feliciano Lopez of Spain 6-1, 6-0, 6-4 and Aljaz Bedene beaten 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 by American Steve Johnson.