By Serbian tennis player Stefan Milicevic has been handed one of the harshest punishments in the sport’s history: a 24-year suspension for match-fixing, alongside a £53,000 fine. The ban keeps him out of tennis until October 2050, when he will be 53 years old.
Tennis (Credits: BBC Sport)
Fixer and Recruiter
The 29-year-old, who reached a career-high world ranking of 1,338th in 2014 and competed in 22 professional tournaments on the lower-tier ITF Tour between 2013 and 2023, was charged with fixing six matches — five of which he played in himself — and attempting to fix six more between 2022 and 2024.
The International Tennis Integrity Authority (ITIA) also charged Milicevic with recruiting — or attempting to recruit — multiple professional players as part of what it described as a “corrupt network.” Players recruited by Milicevic have themselves been accused of fixing matches, suggesting the case reaches beyond a lone offender into organized corruption on the lower rungs of the tour.
Why the Ban Is So Severe
The sanction sits among the most severe the ITIA has imposed short of a lifetime ban. Its length owes partly to Milicevic’s refusal to cooperate: the authority says he “did not engage” with the investigation despite seven separate attempts to contact him. While suspended, he cannot play in, coach at, or even attend any events organized or sanctioned by World Tennis, the WTA, the ATP, the Grand Slams, or any national association.
It follows a similar bombshell from December, when French player Quentin Folliot was banned for 20 years after investigators found he was a central figure in a player network operating on behalf of a match-fixing syndicate. Together, the two cases underline how corruption syndicates continue to target the financially vulnerable lower tiers of professional tennis.
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Source: BBC Sport — read the full story there.
