Former tennis world No. 1 Arantsa Sanchez Vicario has revealed new details about how she lost her $60 million fortune and narrowly avoided jail.
The four-time Grand Slam champion and her ex-entrepreneur husband Josep Santacana are on trial in 2023 on charges of hiding assets to avoid paying bank debts.
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario celebrates winning the 1998 Sydney International. Michelle Bunn/Fairfax Media
It was the latest in a series of criminal charges related to fraud allegations dating back to the early 1990s.
Sanchez Vicario was given a suspended two-year prison sentence and ordered to repay $10 million to the Luxembourg bank.
In an interview with a Spanish TV show Callejo UniverseSanchez Vicario said she lost her entire fortune, which she estimates to be about $60 million, and firmly placed the blame on her ex-husband.
“I trusted him because he was the father of my children,” she said.
“I fell blindly in love… he really is not the person I thought he was.”
“I focused on playing tennis and never took care of my financial affairs because I didn’t know how to do it.
“I trusted my husband… and the money disappeared. I had to take on the whole burden.”
The couple has been married for 11 years and has two children.
Sanchez Vicario said she avoided jail time because she accepted a judge’s order to pay 50 percent of all future earnings to pay off a huge bank debt.
“I submit, even though deep down I was a victim,” she said.
“It was a shock (to go to trial). 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 happen to me.’
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario at the 2025 Barcelona Open. Getty
The Spaniard has three Roland Garros titles to her name and famously won her first title in 1989 when she was just 17 years old. She won two more in 1994 (she also won the US Open that year) and 1998. She also reached the finals of Wimbledon and the Australian Open several times.
After her retirement in 2002, Sánchez Vicario named the court in the Caja Mágica, where the Madrid Masters tournament is held, after her. It has reportedly since been removed.
She now works as a tennis coach in the United States and continues to pay half her salary in debt.