Taking advantage of his presence at the Challenger de Les Franqueses, we have been able to interview Marco Trungellit. The Argentinian tennis player is one of those who always speak plainly, nothing should be hidden, and has spoken openly about the current problems on the court.
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is real An expert on the earlier stages of a Grand Slam tournament as he is the tennis player who has won them the most 9 times in total. For him, the key is the whole atmosphere that surrounds these types of tournaments and that the financial motivation of these meetings is very important. Despite having beaten so many, he feels that many times they were heads or tails without any physical preparation.
He currently lives in Andorra with his wife and newborn son because he really likes the peace of living outside the big cities. He trains there regularly Munar, Pedro Martinez, Carballés with whom he has created a great group.
Trungelliti is also not shy to tell us about all the problems that surround him after his death to condemn match buying at the Challenger level.
What Is your relationship with argentinian tennis players?
With some I get along well and with others everything happened. What I miss certain relationships because I never go. I’m not interested in going and the last thing I want is to get on a plane and go play in a place where I’m still very uncomfortable about the whole situation. I don’t think I’ve had the kind of support I’ve had. They have been more supportive than others, which is quite paradoxical, but that’s the world we live in and we have to accept it. I don’t know if he will ever play in Argentina again because I don’t like it and I wouldn’t feel comfortable and I’m still not ready to remove a lot of things that didn’t do me any good.
But doesn’t it remove or fear?
It’s more because I don’t want to waste time. I thought about it a lot, inside maybe I would like to go back, but I would need the environment to be more helpful, less hostile, because we live with my family. There it was pretty rough, ugly and hurt a lot.
Do you think that what happened was just the tip of the iceberg and that there are many more hidden incidents?
Clearly. It is quite obvious that there is a parallel system of corruption and that many organizations are happy that it exists because that is how the people who play the ITF tournaments are treated. In the Challengers more or less, but in the ITF it is impossible to think that it is sustainable that you can leave the tournament making €40. Despite this, people are still very happy and occasionally sanction someone they don’t know to say they are working, but if they wanted to eradicate it, they would have already done so. Here at the club, if you’re distracted a little and look, you’ll notice that betting and doing these things tell tennis players what not to do.
When you are on the court, have you noticed if any of the opponents have sold their matches?
Sometimes it is very significant, but it is difficult to assess. It could also be that another tennis player has had an argument with his wife and this has affected him. There are profiles of players who do that and they say it to each other when they fix matches because they aren’t very smart either and it shows. But it’s pretty thin and as a competitor you have no evidence of what’s going on and the organizations are kicking it up their ass. There are thousands of coaches who all know and still work with tennis players in the top 40, 50 of the world rankings. These are the coaches themselves who have been fixing games for 10-15 years and everyone knows it and it’s impossible that they don’t have proof of what’s going on.
Then the bad guys in the movie are always the ones who complain…
Yes, but because they have an interest in keeping the person you condemn alive. The message they left me with what happened is pretty clear. A lot of players I’ve talked to have told me that when they see what happened to me, they’re not going to report anything. And that’s exactly what the organizations are looking for: that no one else would judge and the problems are over. The message was very clear. «If you’re going to judge, we’ll leave you completely alone, and if they kill you tomorrow, we won’t care» and that’s what happens. We are in a monopoly position where it is impossible to do things right.
Do you think if there was a top 100 they would remove or hide it?
On the subject of Argentinians, some names came up, but in the middle, because one of the tridents was released and there is injustice. The problem is they can’t just put one. They would have to bring in trainers and soon physios, physical trainers… It’s all about the big amount of money that this world controls. Players are unprotected and you have to choose between earning 200 euros for winning the game or winning 15,000 euros by being corrupt in my opinion. But there is no desire to make tennis a sport that is said to be clean, although I can truly assure you that it is not.
