Serbian tennis player Stefan Milicevic banned 24 years for match-fixing

Serbian tennis player Stefan Milicevic has been banned from tennis for 24 years for match-fixing — one of the most severe punishments the sport's anti-corruption investigators have ever imposed, falling just short of a lifetime ban. The suspension runs to October 2050 and carries a £53,000 fine.

The International Tennis Integrity Authority charged the 29-year-old with fixing six matches between 2022 and 2024, five of them matches in which he was himself competing, and with attempting to fix a further six. He was also charged with recruiting, or attempting to recruit, multiple professional players into what the authority describes as "a corrupt network" — with the result, it says, that a number of other players fixed matches. He did not co-operate with the investigation: the ITIA made seven attempts, through multiple channels, to raise a response, and he never engaged.

His career explains the terrain. Milicevic's highest world ranking was 1,338th, reached in 2014, and he spent his playing years at the bottom of the professional game — college tennis at the University of Minnesota, later a coaching job at DePaul University in Chicago. At that level the prize money is small, and a match between two unknowns can be steered point by point without drawing a camera.

He is the latest lower-tier player to draw a sanction measured in decades. France's Quentin Folliot was banned for 20 years last December after 27 breaches of the tennis anti-corruption protocol; China's Pang Renlong received 12 years in the same month. The sentences lengthen as the crime settles into the tiers where the prize money is smallest and the scrutiny thinnest. For a 29-year-old, the difference between 24 years and life is academic.

Until October 2050, Milicevic may not play in, coach at or attend any event organised or sanctioned by the sport's governing bodies. He will be 53 years old when the ban ends.