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A former French tennis player has seen his ban for match fixing bumped up to three years after his attempt at appealing the initial penalty backfired.
Samuel Bensoussan, a 34-year-old from France, was initially suspended for one year and 11 months after he was found to have fixed four matches.
The Frenchman’s actions were tied to a wide-ranging match-fixing syndicate set up in Belgium by a man named Grigor Sargsyan.
According to The Athletic, citing documents from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), this syndicate was involved in fixing a stunning 375 matches at a minimum, and involved 1,500 conspirators.
However, Bensoussan, whose suspension started in May of 2025, opted to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Of the 18 breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Protocol Bensoussan was charged with, all but one were proven. However, in his appeal, he alleged that he had been pulled into the situations due to false accusations from former tennis player Mick Lescure.
Lescure was handed a lifetime ban in 2022 for, you guessed it, match fixing.
Bensoussan — who has turned to coaching and previously hit a singles career high-water mark of No. 405 back in 2018 — wasn’t the only party appealing the decision. ITIA was appealing it as well, saying that he should actually have his suspension increased to be more in line with those given to others, and requested that it be upped to six and a half years.
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The CAS dismissed Bensoussan’s appeal, and as if that wasn’t bad enough for him, the court decided that he should have his suspension increased, though it stopped short of going with the six and a half years the ITIA was looking for.
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Bensoussan’s ban is now three years, and begins on the same date as his previous one, meaning it will end in May of 2028.
