ITIA bans Stefan Milicevic for 24 years: match-fixing and recruiting fellow players at tennis's lowest tier

On court four at a low-tier ITF event, there is no grandstand, no television, no line judge. A player whose career-high ranking was world No. 1,338 walks into a match whose scoreline was agreed in advance. The silence on courts like that is the ideal environment for match-fixing networks, and it is also the data zone I most often find empty when I go back through my tracking records.

On October 15, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced its sanction against Stefan Milicevic: a 24-year ban, a $70,000 fine, and a prohibition on coaching and on attending any event under World Tennis, the WTA, the ATP, the Grand Slams and national federations. The ban is effective from October 9, 2026.

What makes me stop is not the 24 years. It is the gap between the scale of his career and the scale of the conduct the governing body has attributed to him.

Milicevic is 29. He played just 11 professional matches between 2026 and 2026, with a career-high ranking of world No. 1,338, set in August 2026. That is the third tier of the international men's tennis system, where prize money is low and oversight is thinnest.

According to the ITIA, he arranged the outcome of six matches, five of which he played in. He also made six failed attempts to fix matches and recruited other players into the network. When the ITIA made contact, he did not respond to any of seven attempts. Because he did not respond, the case was handled under the default mechanism of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program (TACP), rather than through an independent adversarial hearing.

Across years of watching lower-tier events, I have settled on one rule: where prize money is low, the stands are empty and the data is thin, the fixing risk is highest. Milicevic is a link in that structure. He played 11 matches over two years, yet the number of fixing acts the ITIA recorded reaches 12 — six arranged matches plus six failed attempts. The volume of manipulation far exceeds his genuine competitive footprint. When fixing acts outnumber professional matches, a player is monetising corruption rather than tennis.

The heaviest detail is the recruitment. A player who fixes his own matches is a corrupted individual. A player who pulls others into the network is a node. The ITIA is not judging an individual; it is cutting a link to stop the chain from spreading. That is what explains the 24-year term. The ITIA spokesperson stated plainly that the length reflects the severity of the conduct, covering both fixing and recruiting, rather than an added penalty for non-cooperation.

The scope of the ban also matters. It does not stop at competing. It covers coaching and even attending events under World Tennis, the WTA