Russian tennis player Dmitry Tursunov said he was approached several times with offers of bribes to fix matches, a newspaper reported Friday. “I was approached in Madrid in the middle of the season last year, and at some other tournament,” Tursunov told the daily Izvestia. The 29th-ranked Tursunov, who played on the Russian team that beat Germany in the Davis Cup semifinals last weekend, refused to…

Mercedes-Benz will end its sponsorship of the men’s ATP tennis tour when the current three-year contract expires at the end of 2008. The company has been one of the main sponsors of the ATP since 1996. The German carmaker said Friday it would shift focus to golf, equestrian and soccer, as well as fashion and lifestyle.

Roger Federer has pulled out of the Japan Open tennis tournament. “I’m so disappointed that I have to withdraw from the Japan Open,” Federer said in a statement released by organizers Friday. “I have not physically recovered 100 percent from the U.S. Open and Davis Cup.” Federer said that he was told by his doctor that in order to avoid the risk of serious injury he should not play in a tournament…