ITIA Bans Serbian Tennis Player for 24 Years After Match-Fixing Charges Go Unanswered

The International Tennis Integrity Agency has suspended Stefan Milićević until 2050 for fixing matches and recruiting other players into a corrupt network. No hearing was held: the player did not respond to the charges, so the sanction the agency proposed took effect by default.

• The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) has suspended Serbian player Stefan Milićević for 24 years and fined them $70,000 for breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program (TACP), according to its release of 15 October
• Milićević was charged with fixing six matches, five of them as a player, attempting to fix six more, and recruiting or trying to recruit other professionals into a corrupt network between 2022 and 2024
• The player did not respond to seven ITIA attempts to make contact or to a Notice of Major Offense issued on 24 September, so the proposed sanction took effect on 9 October as a deemed sanction and runs to 8 October 2050
• It is longer than the 20-year bans handed to Quentin Folliot in December 2025 and Jasel Beltre in May 2026, both of which followed hearings before an independent Anti-Corruption Hearing Officer
• The ITIA logged 31 betting-industry match alerts in the first half of 2026, 23 of them on the World Tennis Tour, and the International Betting Integrity Association counted 74 tennis alerts in 2025

A 24-Year Ban Reached Without a Hearing

The ITIA announced on 15 October that it had suspended Stefan Milićević, a 29-year-old Serbian player whose career-high world singles ranking was 1,338 in August 2014, for 24 years and fined them $70,000 for "significant breaches of tennis' anti-corruption rules". According to the release, Milićević was charged with fixing six matches, including five in which they were competing, and with attempting to fix a further six, between 2022 and 2024. The player was also charged with recruiting or attempting to recruit multiple professional players into a corrupt network over the same period, which the ITIA says resulted in a number of other players fixing matches.

Milićević did not engage with the ITIA's 2026 investigation, despite seven separate attempts through multiple channels to obtain a response, according to the agency, which issued a Notice of Major Offense on 24 September. The player did not respond, and under the rules and the ITIA's Sanctioning Guidelines the sanction it proposed came into force on 9 October. The ban ends on 8 October 2050. Until then Milićević may not play in, coach at or attend any event organised or sanctioned by World Tennis, the WTA, the ATP, the Grand Slams or any national association, the release says.

The release does not name the tournaments, the matches or the other players it says were drawn into fixing, and does not say whether corrupt payments were found or whether any law enforcement inquiry is linked. Unlike its announcements on Folliot and Beltre, it links to no written decision, because no hearing officer made one.

How a Deemed Sanction Works, and What It Cost

Under the 2026 TACP, a Notice of Major Offense states the ITIA's proposed sanction and gives the accused ten business days to choose. Agreeing earns a 25% early admission discount and a final sanction; disputing the charges sends the case to an independent Anti-Corruption Hearing Officer (AHO); doing neither turns the proposal into a deemed sanction.

A deemed sanction can be appealed, but only to an AHO, with written notice within ten business days of it taking effect, and that ruling is final: the rule bars any further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) or any other court. The release does not say whether Milićević has appealed. On the TACP's own terms, an admission within the first window would have cut the proposed 24 years by a quarter, to 18.

Where This Sits Among Tennis' Longest Bans

The ITIA suspended French player Quentin Folliot for 20 years in December 2025, fined them $70,000 and ordered repayment of more than $44,000 in corrupt payments, after AHO Amani Khalifa upheld 27 of 30 charges covering 10 of 11 matches. In the written decision, Khalifa described Folliot as "a vector for a wider criminal syndicate". In May 2026, AHO Jeffrey Mishkin suspended Jasel Beltre of the Dominican Republic for 20 years with a $55,000 fine for 20 breaches across 11 matches between November 2022 and March 2024; Beltre had requested a hearing but did not attend it.

The ITIA confirmed eight TACP sanctions in the first quarter of 2026 and nine in the second, according to its quarterly updates, and received 21 and 10 match alerts in those quarters under confidential memoranda of understanding with the regulated betting industry. Of the 31, 23 related to World Tennis Tour events, which in the ITIA's tables run from M15 and W15 up to W75, with M15 men's events alone accounting for seven.

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) said 300 suspicious betting alerts were reported to authorities in 2025, with football on 110 and tennis on 74. In the second quarter of 2026 tennis produced nine of IBIA's 76 alerts, about 12%, according to Asia Gaming Brief's account of IBIA's quarterly report.

Silence Has Become a Costly Option in Tennis Integrity Cases

The headline number matters less than the route to it. Milićević was charged over 12 matches, against the 10 upheld for Folliot and the 11 in Beltre's case, yet received four more years than either, and the 24 years is the ITIA's own proposal, never tested by an independent hearing officer. The TACP rewards early admission with a 25% reduction, gives disputed cases a hearing, and leaves those who ignore the process with the full proposed sanction and a narrow appeal that ends at an AHO, with no route to CAS. That stops a case stalling when an accused player stops answering. The cost is transparency. A deemed sanction produces no reasoned decision, so the public record of a network the ITIA says drew in other players is a single paragraph.

The Lower Tiers Remain the Point of Exposure

Milićević's highest ranking was outside the world's top 1,300, and the ITIA's own alert data shows where the risk concentrates: more than seven in 10 of its betting alerts in the first half of 2026 came from World Tennis Tour events. Tennis is not alone this week, which also brought ESIC's bans of five Counter-Strike players and a permanent Brazilian federal police division against match-fixing, but its detection leans on operators: the ITIA's alerts arrive through memoranda with the regulated betting industry. Recruitment charges are the part of this case operators should watch: a single recruiter can turn one approach into several fixed matches, and the release does not say whether the players it says were drawn in have been charged.

A 24-year ban for a player who would not engage shows the ITIA can close a case without a defendant. Whether the wider network it describes is brought into the open will decide how much the case does for confidence in lower-tier tennis markets.