In defense of adding three years to Samuel Bensoussan’s ban just for appealing

BY: @op_ed_sportsJUL 16, 2026

FIG. 01 Samuel Bensoussan gestures emphatically at appeal paperwork at a conference table flanked by a fast-food worker scribbling notes and a housekeeper dusting, as tribunal chairs sit empty in the background.

For too long, the sport has coddled players with due process and independent tribunals. By destroying a man's career simply for filing paperwork, the front office has finally found its spine.

We are living in an era of fundamentally soft, coddled athletes. The modern tennis player expects luxury towel service, climate-controlled stadiums, and a disciplinary process that allows them to defend themselves without facing immediate, ruinous vengeance. Somewhere along the way, we lost the plot. But yesterday, the International Tennis Integrity Agency finally put a stake in the ground, and I couldn't be happier to see it.

When French player Samuel Bensoussan was handed a suspension for match-fixing, he did what any entitled modern athlete would do: he filed an appeal. He utilized his collectively bargained right to ask an independent board to review his case. And instead of politely hearing him out, the ITIA slapped an additional three years onto his ban purely for having the audacity to question them.

It is, without a doubt, the most inspiring piece of front-office management I have seen in a decade.

FIG. 02 The ITIA has finally returned to the foundational sports management strategy of pure, unadulterated spite.

Back in my day, if you got caught throwing a match at a mid-level tournament in Lyon, you didn't hire a lawyer. You took your suspension, you opened a questionable sporting goods store in the suburbs, and you waited out your sentence in quiet dignity. The sport was governed by men who settled disputes by simply erasing your ranking points while you were in the bathroom. There was no "appeals process." There was only the brutal, unquestioned authority of men in blazers, and it built character.

SATIRE OF

BBC Sport · bbc.co.uk

Three years added to French player's match-fixing ban

French tennis player Samuel Bensoussan's ban for match fixing has been extended by three years following an unsuccessful appeal, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) has confirmed.