Serbian player Stefan Milicevic has been banned from tennis for 24 years for match-fixing. The suspension is one of the most severe handed out by tennis anti-corruption investigators, outside of a lifetime ban. Milicevic was also fined £53,000.
The ban runs until October 2050. He will be 53 years old by then. He is 29 now.
What he was charged with
The International Tennis Integrity Authority (ITIA) charged Milicevic with fixing six matches. He played in five of them. It also charged him with attempting to fix six more matches between 2022 and 2024.
The ITIA said he also recruited, or tried to recruit, several professional players “as part of a corrupt network”. Some of those players have since been accused by the ITIA of fixing matches themselves.
Milicevic played on the lower-tier ITF Tour. He entered 22 professional tournaments between 2013 and 2023. His best world ranking was 1,338th, reached in 2014.
Why the ban is so long
Part of the reason for the length is that Milicevic did not help the investigation. The ITIA said he “did not engage” with the process. The organisation tried to contact him seven separate times.
During the ban he cannot play in, coach at or attend any event run or sanctioned by World Tennis, the WTA, the ATP, the Grand Slams or any national association.
A second long ban in recent months
The case follows that of French player Quentin Folliot. He was banned for 20 years in December after the ITIA found he was a central figure in a network of players working for a match-fixing syndicate.
Folliot reached a career-high ranking of 488 in 2022. He denied charges linked to 11 matches played between 2022 and 2024, eight of them his own. At a hearing, 27 of the 30 charges against him were upheld. They covered 10 of the 11 matches.
Source: BBC Sport
