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A Serbian tennis player has been banned from the sport for 24 years after fixing matches and recruiting other players to do so in what made for a “corrupt network,” the ITIA announced Thursday.
An investigation by the agency found Stefan Milićević to have fixed six matches — and attempted to fix six additional contests — over a four-year period.
He was fined $70,000 and the ban will keep him out of tennis until 2050, when he will be 53 years old.
Milićević’s offenses happened from 2022-24, and he played in five of the six matches.
During that span, the 29-year-old played in 11 professional matches, all of which were on the third tier of the tour, per World Tennis records.
Milićević, who reached a career-high ranking of world No. 1,338 in men’s singles, tried to involve others.
The investigation found he reached out to other players, recruiting them “as part of a corrupt network” during that time span and resulted in “a number of other players fixing matches,” the ITIA stated.
The agency did not reveal which matches were fixed nor the names of other players involved.
The ITIA said Milićević declined to cooperate with an investigation conducted this year, despite what the agency was “seven separate attempts” to reach the player through multiple channels for a response.
However, the ITIA said Milićević’s failure to cooperate with the investigation did not play into his punishment.
Throughout the suspension, he will not be allowed to play, coach or attend any events organized or sanctioned by World Tennis, ATP, WTA, any national association and the Grand Slam tournaments.
Milićević’s ban follows France’s Quentin Folliot, who was banned for 20 years in December after the ITIA discovered he was the central figure in a network of players fixing matches.
China’s Pang Renlong was also banned for 12 years after committing 22 offenses across five months.
Milićević played tennis at the University of Minnesota and was later a coach at DePaul University in Chicago.