Tennis pro Marco Trungelliti exposed the betting mafia – after which his life was made hell

High above the Roy Emerson Arena in Gstaad sits a railway bridge. It's an inconspicuous, functional monument, over which the carriages of the Panorama Express, the international tourist attraction in the Belle Époque style, rattle every half hour.

It's late Saturday afternoon, and Marco Trungelliti points up to this footbridge and begins to talk. He associates memories with this functional building. In 2019, he lost to Gian Marco Moroni in straight sets in qualifying for the Gstaad ATP tournament; it was one of the worst matches of his career. "I walked to this bridge and spent an hour thinking about my life," says Trungelliti. He reflects on his retirement, at just 29 years old.

And then, he thinks that maybe it would be better if he simply disappeared from this world. "Thinking about it doesn't mean you actually intend to. But I really wasn't feeling well; my mental state was terrible. I've never spoken about it publicly because suicidal thoughts were a taboo subject. For my generation, anyway. But thankfully, that's slowly changing," he says.

Trungelliti is 35 and currently ranked number 149 in the tennis world. An Argentinian with gentle features and flowing hair, he somewhat resembles a younger version of the Italian rock musician Jovanotti.

He has had turbulent years behind him, and he struggled with depression for a long time. It's difficult to say exactly when it manifested. But the trigger is clear: In 2015, Trungelliti was offered up to $100,000 via Facebook in Argentina to intentionally lose a match. He refused, reported the incident, and became the star witness in a show trial that resulted in several players receiving lengthy bans, including the now-returning clay-court specialists Federico Coria and Nicolás Kicker.

But the whistleblower is met not with gratitude, but with unfiltered hostility. He is called a "rat," a "snitch," and a traitor. The Tennis Integrity Unit, which is responsible for the investigation, did not deem it necessary to anonymize the key witness.

A dark time began for Trungelliti: Opponents refused to shake his hand. Opposing coaches no longer greeted him. He received threats, no longer felt safe at home, and rarely returned to Argentina. "Luckily, I was living in Barcelona at the time, otherwise things could have ended very badly," says Trungelliti.

Anyone thinking, "Trungelliti and Barcelona, there was something there," is right: In 2018, he was eliminated in qualifying for the French Open, left the country, and still made it into the main draw as a lucky loser. He and his 88-year-old grandmother spontaneously traveled ten hours from Barcelona to Paris in a rental car they had originally booked for a short vacation. And still won his first-round match. It was a rare ray of hope in the gloomy years of paralyzing mental fog.

But the Spanish metropolis is too hectic for him. He stays in Neuchâtel for six months, but it irritates him that people eat dinner at 6 p.m. and the streets are empty by 9 p.m. Then he moves to Andorra with his wife Nadir. He says the mountains have a calming, healing effect on him: "On the tennis court, I felt miserable, depressed, angry. But in the mountains, I was a completely normal person."

He considered retirement, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. In April 2021, he traveled to Oeiras, Portugal, for a tournament on the second-tier Challenger circuit. His coach contracted COVID-19, and shortly thereafter, Trungelliti also showed symptoms. A doctor ordered a ten-day hotel quarantine, and when he tested positive after ten days, he had to stay twice as long.

It's as if someone had suddenly pressed the stop button on his life. The distractions of being a professional suddenly disappear: the travel, the training, the matches. Trungelliti has plenty of time to reflect. He says: "I felt like a victim. The Tennis Integrity Unit had used me during the trial and offered zero support. But in Oeiras, I looked deep within myself and decided to regain control of my life. I no longer felt like hiding. Since then, I've been feeling much better; I've been able to shed a lot of hatred and baggage. I've become calmer, more balanced, almost like a Swiss. I can feel my South American temperament fading."

Trungelliti is a reflective person, someone who cares and thinks about things. Long before he was stranded in Portugal, he sought help from a psychologist. His sudden death was a severe blow for him. Trungelliti says: "It wasn't easy for me to build trust with a therapist. For my generation, depression didn't really exist for a long time. It was simply an abstract term."

He finds a new psychologist – and, in the solitude of Oeiras, achieves his big breakthrough. Since then, many things in his life have changed for the better. He's become a father, and his outbursts on the court have become less frequent. "A few months ago, I smashed a racket again, the first time in ages," says Trungelliti.

In terms of sport, finding inner peace hasn't changed much. Trungelliti is fighting to break into the top 100 and earn a spot in the regular ATP tournament draw. In 2024, he only managed that four times; otherwise, he travels the world, competing in Challenger tournaments.

He has earned $1.8 million in his career. That sounds like a nice sum, but that doesn't include taxes on the prize money and the high expenses for coaches, travel, and physiotherapists.

This Saturday in Gstaad, Trungelliti just beat Zurich's Alexander Ritschard in the first qualifying round, comfortably in two sets. This earned him just under 1,500 Swiss francs. He says: "If I don't win tomorrow, I'll have lost money by participating here." His bank accounts are empty, Trungelliti says, and sometimes he has to juggle to pay his team.

It's not least this financial reality for players outside the top 100 in the world rankings that creates a breeding ground for betting fraud. Intentionally losing a match for $25,000 brings quicker money. On the Challenger Tour, you have to win a tournament, meaning you survive five rounds. Not to mention the third-tier ITF tournaments.

How widespread are match-fixings today? "It happens all the time on the Challenger Tour. I see the same people lurking around as before; nothing's changed," says Trungelliti, and there's no doubt in his voice. Then he adds: "The ATP profits heavily from the betting business. We players should participate more in this; it's the least we can do to compensate for what we're all going through. For all the hate we receive. I could pull out my phone right now and I'd probably have ten Instagram messages wishing death on me, my wife, or my son. And that's after winning a match."

Death threats from frustrated gambling addicts have become a daily occurrence for tennis professionals; the phenomenon is well known and seems to be of no concern to platforms like Instagram. Perhaps less present in the collective memory is the fact that both the ATP and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) have signed multimillion-dollar agreements with the Swiss company Sportradar .

The match data travels from the umpire's chair via the publicly listed company in real time directly to the bookmakers, for whom tennis betting is a global billion-dollar market. You can bet on almost anything, such as who will win the next point or who will make the next break. This applies from Wimbledon to the ITF tournament in Muttenz, where the prize money for the winner is just under 4,000 Swiss francs. In many cases, the bookmakers also own the broadcasting rights – the matches can be followed live on their platforms.

Trungelliti isn't the only player who finds it offensive that he has to consider whether he can afford to book a single room for himself and his coach in Gstaad. Meanwhile, Denise Coates, CEO of leading sports betting provider Bet365, can pay herself a salary of over 100 million Swiss francs, thanks in part to the income generated from data provided by the ATP.

Trungelliti says he hasn't received any more offers from the betting mafia in recent years: "As far as I'm concerned, that's the only positive aspect of this story." He says he doesn't regret reporting the advances at all. But after what happened to him, he understands those who decided against it.

But even in 2025, Trungelliti is someone who calls things by their name, a fighter for justice. He says: "Players in my region of the world rankings can't really afford to be injured. Then you have costs of $10,000 a month and zero income. So you suffer through it and play injured, which in turn damages the product. The entire system needs to be rethought; there's more than enough money in tennis. It just needs redistribution from the top down. But top players like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have never cared about how other players are doing."

Gstaad brings some financial relief for Trungelliti this year: He also won his second qualifying match and will now face Francisco Comesaña in the main draw on Tuesday. Even outsiders like Trungelliti can achieve a lot here these days—the tournament is thin after several withdrawals.

Perhaps this will be Trungelliti's last appearance in Gstaad; he will turn 36 in January. Perhaps the power of his beloved mountains in the Alpine panorama of the Saanenland will help him achieve a result that will push away the dark memories of that hour at the railway bridge over the Roy Emerson Arena.