Julián Andrés Santa
At 44 years old, Yefrey Vergara, born in the municipality of Apía, is going through one of the best moments of his career, applying the saying that ‘no one is a prophet in his own land’, since his entire sporting process as a physical trainer has done outside of his beloved Risaralda, however, he always expresses his pride and passion for the department that gave him life. The apiano performs in a great way in the coaching staff of the Colombian senior tennis team.
From soccer to tennis
“I developed as a physical trainer in América de Cali with Professor Ricardo Gareca and in that transit I arrived in Santa Fe in 2006 where I worked until 2010. Later I learned about the entire tennis training cycle with an academy in Bogotá and methodologically oriented the Bogotá Tennis League for three years. In that transit I met Mariana Duque who was our player and we prepared her in the Olympic Cycle where she was the Pan American Games champion and she obtained a place in the Rio Olympic Games.
His experiences in the Grand Slam
“In that transit I met Robert Farah who had back and hip symptoms. They told him about my work and some doctors referred him to me and we were able to do all the restoration and then I took them on as a duo in 2018. We did the entire preparatory process in Bogotá, I traveled with them to different cycles and during those years we achieved important titles integrating the coaching staff and that leads me to the connotation of being the physical trainer of the Colombian national team.”
Why didn’t you work in Risaralda?
“When I was young they made a call for the Risaralda team. I was in year 79 at the time and in the preparation cycle Difútbol changed the call to year 80, so I was left with the feeling of not having been able to represent Pereira as an active player but I did a very short process in the minor divisions of Ferroclub del Deportivo Pereira and the following year I went to Cali to study at the university.”
Transition from soccer to tennis
«For me it was very easy to understand the entire football training system as such but in that transition it was not easy because I literally had to learn all the mechanics and all the physiological phenomena that were an organism when training professional players. It was like a relearning but the truth is that in that process I felt very good because it was enriching me with the entire pedagogical and academic subject.
Great demand to stay in the national team
«I have been the physical trainer of the Colombian senior tennis team for four years and I believe that performance does not allow prolonged downward curves. We knew how to do it with Mariana Duque, who was ranked 207 in the world and in our management she was 63, advancing one of her biggest dreams, which was to represent Colombia in the Olympic Games and she became champion of the Pan American Games in Canada.
Proudly born in Risaralda
«Being from Risraldense, having had all this land as manager and developing in this environment of such strong and brave people, has made me explore many fields and I always meet a Risraldense along the way. We show that we are a very prosperous and very intelligent race and that we know how to get ahead,” says Yefrey Vergara, physical trainer of the Colombian tennis team.
Given:
Currently Yefrey Vergara is developing a training center
ment called PF More.