Savic Gets Life Ban for Match Fixing at BetLM

LONDON —Ser­bian ten­nis player David Savic has received a life ban for
attempt­ing to fix matches.

The Ten­nis Integrity Unit says the 659th-ranked Savic was also fined
$ 100,000 after being found guilty of three vio­la­tions of the sport’s
inter­na­tional anti-corruption pro­gram. The ban begins immediately.

He’s the sec­ond player to get a life­time ban. In May, Aus­trian player Daniel
Koellerer was the first to be banned for match-fixing.

The 26-year-old Savic was found guilty of the same three vio­la­tions of the
sport’s anti-corruption rules as Koellerer, includ­ing “con­triv­ing or attempt­ing
to con­trive the out­come of an event.”

Savic reached a career best 363rd in the rank­ings in 2009 and never played
above the chal­lenger circuit.

The anti-corruption hear­ing was held on Sept. 12 in Lon­don and details will
not be made pub­lic, the TIU said.

Koellerer, a for­mer Davis Cup player who once ranked 55th, is fight­ing his
ban that resulted from vio­la­tions between Octo­ber 2009 and July 2010.

The TIU has been set up on behalf of the Inter­na­tional Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion and
the ATP and WTA Tours.

Five Ital­ians were among lower-ranked play­ers sanc­tioned by the ATP in
recent years for bet­ting on matches—receiving sus­pen­sions rang­ing from six
weeks to nine months between 2007-08. French player Math­ieu Mont­court also was
banned for two months in 2008.

Russ­ian player Niko­lay Davy­denko was cleared in 2008 of any wrong­do­ing
fol­low­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion by the ATP into sus­pi­cious bet­ting pat­terns
sur­round­ing his match against 87th-ranked Mar­tin Vas­sallo Arguello the pre­vi­ous
year.