Marco Trungelliti has claimed that Novak Djokovic has been offered the chance to fix his matches in the past. The Argentine tennis player made waves when he became a whistleblower exposing match-fixing but instead of being praised, he said he was labelled a “snitch”. More than four years on, Trungelliti now has the support of Djokovic and the Professional Tennis Players Association as the world No 1 discussed his own experiences with the 33-year-old.
Trungelliti shocked the tennis world in February 2019 when he exposed the truths of match-fixing in tennis during an interview with La Nacion, revealing that he had turned down a bribe from a betting group and reported them to the Tennis Integrity Unit. The TIU then asked him to testify against three of his compatriots who were being investigated for match-fixing – Federico Coria, Nicolas Kicker and Patricio Heras – and they were later suspended.
But the current world No 236 found himself ostracised for trying to keep the sport clean, revealing that he had been called a “snitch”. Four years later, Trungelliti is now competing in Argentina for the first time since opening up on the issue of match-fixing in tennis and he praised Djokovic for trying to put an end to the issue.
In a new interview with La Nacion, the former world No 112 said: “Djokovic said he had been offered match-fixing. Sergiy Stakhovsky, who had called me a snitch, later came out to say that he was also offered.”
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It came as validation for Trungelliti, who said it “hurt” to be branded a snitch for trying to maintain the integrity of the sport. “It’s like everything fell into place, but it broke me, basically, because I didn’t expect it,” he added.
He also shared his gratitude for the Professional Tennis Players Association – the group co-founded by Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil – and said he got to speak with the world No 1 at the recent US Open. The Argentine explained that Djokovic and the PTPA were in agreement with his own thoughts on match-fixing.
