• International Tennis Federation bans Pitner until 19 April 2026
The tennis umpire Denis Pitner at Wimbledon in 2011, taken from the Croat’s Facebook page. Photograph: Facebook
A prominent tennis umpire the Guardian exposed in February as having worked at last year’s US Open while serving an undisclosed one-year suspension has been banned for 10 years.
The International Tennis Federation insisted last night that, while it erred byfailing to release the original information to the media, it did inform the relevant governing bodies, marking Denis Pitner’s card as “Do Not Credential”.
However, the admission only further embarrasses the United States Tennis Association, which did not act on the directive – and a senior figure in the Association of the Tennis Professionals was adamant that he and colleagues had “no knowledge whatsoever” of Pitner’s ban until it emerged in the media. On Tuesday it announced the Croat official could not work again until 19 April 2026.
Minor officials have been banned in the past but Pitner is the first umpire at a higher level to be sanctioned. He officiated at Flushing Meadows in September and the Qatar Open in January, just before the Australian Open, which was blighted by renewed speculation regarding old match-fixing allegations. It was this controversy that led the Guardian to discover Pitner’s first ban. It has also emerged he did not declare his ban when applying to the Lawn Tennis Association to officiate at this year’s Wimbledon.
Tuesday’s announcement comes the day after the world No1, Novak Djokovic,rejected claims by Andy Murray that the sport was not completely “clean”. The world No2 urged authorities to crack down harder on cheating of all sorts in the sport. Djokovic’s coach, Boris Becker, also said Murray was “totally out of order” for raising these suspicions without proof.
The ITF found Pitner guilty of “failure to notify the United States Tennis Association of the suspension of his white badge certification; [and] misrepresentation to the Qatar Tennis Federation that he held a current white badge certification in his application to officiate at the 2016 Qatar Open”.
