02/20/2020 - 18:11
- Clarín.com
- sports
On May 25, 2018, four days after his debut in an ATP tournament, Federico Coria received the worst news of his career. The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) had found him guilty of corruption charges and, shortly thereafter, applied an eight-month penalty, which was then reduced to two. Almost a year and 9 months later, Guillermo's brother got into the quarterfinals of the Rio ATP 500, the best performance of his life so far.
"It hurt a lot, because I had two years with this issue. Waking up with the uncertainty of not knowing what I was facing hurt me a lot . The whole process made me grow and mature. I always try to look for the positive side of things and now I grew up and had to go through different complicated situations, "Coria told Clarín in an interview published in September of that 2018.
Federico Coria was accused of not having reported to the TIU two bribery attempts that were made to fix games during different Futures tournaments in 2015. According to the investigation, the first offer was in July 2015, to lose a set during a game in the future of Sassuolo, in Italy. A month later, they tried again to lose a number of games during the rest of the year.
His name reappeared on the scene last year when journalist Sebastián Torok published in La Nación an investigation into match and betting arrangements in tennis from an interview with Marco Trungelliti. It was then discovered that, from the collaboration of the tennis player born in Santiago del Estero, the TIU was able to reach one of those responsible and concluded that three Argentines were related to him: Federico Coria, Nicolás Kicker and Patricio Heras had received the offer, so each one received a sanction in June 2018.
But Frederick resurfaced like the Phoenix after the sanction. In August 2018, he won the Future title in Romania and played another nine tournaments. The following year, on May 5, 2019, with 27 years and located in the 266th place of the ATP ranking, he was consecrated for the first time in a Challenger. It was in Savannah, in the United States, to defeat the Italian Paolo Lorenzi 6-3, 4-6 and 6-2. During that year, he also participated in the qualifications of Córdoba, San Pablo, Wimbledon and US Open and reached his best ranking : 115 ° in the world. And that throughout his career until arriving at the ATP carioca had only played three games in main draw of the circuit.
In this 2020, he accumulates six tournaments - one was the classification of the Australian Open - and in Rio de Janeiro he is excited to dream big. Belonging to the fruitful litter of 1992, in which Diego Schwartzman is among many, the Santa Fe knows what it is to fight and get ahead, because it has cost him the insertion of professionalism and out of the shadow of being the brother of one of the best Argentine tennis players in history. And also because the worst nightmare already lived and managed to wake up in time.
In Brazil, in addition, you can fulfill a dream if you get one more victory: get into the top 100 for the first time . "I do not want to get ahead, but it was a dream of life to get into Top 100. I do not know if now, but later I will be close. The dream of my life is to enter Roland Garros directly , and if I fulfill those two things it will be more than I dreamed, ”he told the ATP site.
“You fight so much, so many times I saw myself out of this sport. I didn't enjoy it, I couldn't reach the money, I couldn't get out of the Futures. Now he must be hating me at home that I made them suffer ... but they know the hard road I went through. To my brother, to my family, I only say thank you for being there and for supporting me. I was unmotivated many times, a funnel is made and luckily it is touching me this week, he added almost with tears in his eyes. And he threw a wish into heaven, the one that less than two years ago did not want to ask: "Please, nobody wake me up."