Arantxa Sánchez Vicario went on trial in 2023 along with her now-ex husband Josep Santacana accused of hiding assets to avoid paying bank debts. The fraud accusations dated back as far as the early 1990s.
Sánchez Vicario, who won four Grand Slam titles during her illustrious career, was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay back no less than nearly €9 million to a bank in Luxembourg.
The Spanish tennis-darling revealed on a Spanish TV show Universo Callejo that she had lost her entire fortune, which she estimated to be about €52 million and blames her former husband for her financial misery.
“I trusted him because he was the father of my children,” she said. “I fell blindly in love … he really isn’t the person I thought he was.”
“I focused on playing tennis and never handled my own financial affairs because I didn’t know how. I trusted my husband … and the money vanished. I was left to shoulder the entire burden.”
Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Josep Santacana were married for 11 years and have two children together.
Sánchez Vicario revealed that she avoided going to jail because she accepted the judge’s orders to pay 50 per cent of all future earnings towards the massive debt to the bank.
“I am complying when deep down I was a victim,” she said. “It was a shock. I had to go to therapy because I couldn’t believe it. It was like waking up from a dream and thinking, ‘This can’t be happening to me’.”
The Spanish tennis star who especially excelled on clay won three French Open titles, the first in 1989 at just 17 years old. Known for her relentless grit, the International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee captured 4 Grand Slam singles titles, 6 women's doubles titles, and 4 mixed doubles titles in total
Caja Mágica, which hosts the Madrid Masters tournament named a court after her in 2002 after her retirement but the name has since been removed. Sánchez Vicario today works as a tennis coach in the USA, and continues to pay half her wages to the debt.