Stefan Milicevic has been hit with a 24-year suspension that runs to 2050, one of the harshest sanctions tennis hands out short of a lifetime ban.
Tennis has just dropped one of its heaviest hammers. Serbian player Stefan Milicevic has been suspended for 24 years for match-fixing, a ban that keeps him out of the sport until 2050.
Only a lifetime ban is considered tougher. A sanction of this length tells the sport's integrity watchdogs how seriously they treat anyone caught manipulating results, and it effectively ends any prospect of a professional comeback.
Match-fixing has long been one of the biggest threats to tennis, especially on the lower-tier circuits where prize money is thin and players can be targeted by betting syndicates. Every sanction of this size is meant as a warning to those tempted to sell out their matches.
For Milicevic, the decision closes the book on his career in the sport. For everyone still grinding through the rankings, the message is simple: fix a match, and you could lose a generation's worth of tennis.
