Fixing scar dogs Marco’s fairy tale run in Paris
paris — Marco Cecchinato says he’s ready to “sign in blood” to reach the French Open final but the Italian’s Paris fairy tale just cannot escape the match-fixing scandal that almost finished his career two years ago.
World number 72 Cecchinato on Tuesday became the first Italian man in 40 years to reach a Grand Slam semifinal with a breathtaking 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), 1-6, 7-6 (13/11) victory over 12-time major winner Novak Djokovic.
Cecchinato, who had never won a Grand Slam match in his career before Roland Garros, goes on to face Austrian seventh seed Dominic Thiem for a place in Sunday’s final.
However, he continues to be stalked by the events of 2016 when he was suspended for 18 months by the Italian tennis federation having been accused of fixing.
He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.
The scandal focused on a second-tier Challenger match he lost to Kamil Majchrzak in Morocco in 2015, with his country’s federation banning him and fellow Italians Riccardo Accardi and Antonio Campo.
Cecchinato, though, later had his suspension reduced to 12 months, before it was scrapped completely and he returned to the Tour.
At the time, he had been the highest-ranked player to be banned for fixing. His fine of 40,000 euros ($46,634) was also overturned.
He always denied any involvement in a plot and the Italian Olympic Committee agreed, insisting that there had been “irregularities” in how the evidence was gathered during the investigation.
As he has made his stunning progress in Paris, he has resolutely refused to revisit the controversy. “I told you I don’t want to speak about that. I want to think for this moment in my life,” said Cecchinato, the lowest-ranked player to make the semifinals in almost two decades. —