What it feels like Guillermo Pérez Roldán Reserved impress. Guillermo Perez Roldanformer elite tennis player, climbed to 13th place in the ATP rankings in 1988, suffered physical and psychological abuse by his coach, who was none other than his father, Raúl Pérez Roldán.

The details of the mistreatment come out of Guillermo’s mouth, which his father over-worked in training, with rigidity, discipline and sacrifices, but whipped him in private, either with fists, belts or other elements.

Guillermo did not understand the reasons, since many times the unforgivable and bloody reaction of the parents came after some sporting defeat. But not always.

Twice consecutive winner at Roland Garros Junior, attempted suicide twice. Today Guillermo is 52 years old and lives in Chile.

The documentary is based on interviews with Pérez Roldán, and separately with his father Raúl, and they chose a sentence from the latter as a closing. Undaunted, the father says: “As a coach I was good. The rest…”.

Mariano Zabaleta, Franco Davín, Juan Mónaco also offer their testimonies, i.e. several tennis players who attended the Pérez Roldán school in Tandil, which had between 70 and 80 students, plus Gabriela Sabati and Javier Frana, among others, and also journalists who have followed the career of Pérez Roldán, such as Gonzalo Bonadeo and Guillermo Salatino.

Faced with the question of how it is possible that such abuses did not emerge earlier, there are those who argue that times were different and that certain things were tolerated which, clearly, are and were inadmissible.

“Psychopath” is defined by Mariano Zabaleta as Guillermo’s father.

There is also the testimony of former tennis player Graciela Pérez who, due to the blows inflicted on the face by Raúl Pérez Roldán, lied to her family and invented a journey… until the marks on her face disappeared.

your suicide attempts

And the moment comes when the former tennis player talks about his two attempts to take his own life. After remembering “my grandfather, the only person in my family that I feel I love”, and having told him that he had confessed to him, he gets excited and remembers when he asked him for a gun and tried to commit suicide by charging it with two bullets. He fired two shots and no bullets came out.

The second time it would be in one of his cars, driving around a corner at high speed.

The documentary is divided into three episodes: The end justifies the means, silent partners Y Dear Dadwhich are short, lasting 35, 32 and 36 minutes respectively, and some animations are also used to graphically represent some moments from the past.

Production presents problems that don’t seem difficult to solve. One, the lack of subtitles when talking about, for example, Ivan Lendl. And another is that sometimes the volume of the incidental music is so high that it is difficult to understand the testimonies.

A believer, Pérez Roldán has “two beautiful daughters” and a two and a half month old son. “Here is the mission, try to do something for others,” he says at another time that, to defend his father in a fight, he had to end his career at an age when no tennis player does. It is that the ligaments on his wrist were injured and he was unable to recover.

Without money, because according to what his parents said they emptied their bank accounts, the moment in which he asks his father as a wedding gift to write him and sing a song at the party, is another of the high points of this production, strong for what matters, but which exposes situations that have happened and continue to occur in various sports disciplines.

“Confidential Guillermo Pérez Roldán”

Good

Documentary. Argentina, 2022. Three episodes, total duration 103 ‘. SAM 13. Of: Matia Gey. Available in: Star +.