Former world No. 1 tennis player Arantxa Sanchez Vicario has revealed new details after her $60m fortune “vanished”.
The four-time grand slam champ is still living a nightmare after she was handed a suspended two-year prison sentence and ordered to pay back $11 million worth of debts.
The Australian Open finalist has given a tell-all interview with a Spanish TV show where she made new accusations against her ex-husband — the person she blames for her financial downfall.
The 54-year-old was married to entrepreneur Josep Santacana between 2008 and 2019. They have two children.
The former teenage sensation has turned on her former partner — blaming him entirely for the family’s financial ruin.
“I trusted him because he was the father of my children,” she told Spanish TV show Universo Callejo.
“I fell blindly in love, and he really isn’t the person I thought he was.”
Sanchez Vicario and Santacana faced criminal proceedings in 2023 where she fronted a court case in Barcelona during which she broke down in tears.
She faced up to four years in prison after she was charged with fraud, allegedly hiding assets to avoid paying a $10 million debt to a bank in Luxembourg (Banque de Luxembourg).
The court heard the former Wimbledon finalist had earned $60m throughout her career. She says the numbers were accurate, but stressed at the time of the hearing she was relying on hand-outs from friends to survive.
She admits she was fearful of spending time behind bars.
“I did not go to jail because I am paying 50 per cent of my earnings to the bank,” she said, according to The Sun.
“I am complying when deep down I was a victim.”
She went on to say: “It was in 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.’”
She told a Spanish newspaper at the time of the trial she had no money to support her children.
Santacana has previously disputed Sanchez Vicario’s claims.
He told La Vanguardia newspaper in 2023 he was not the one responsible.
In a separate matter, Sanchez Vicario was ordered in 2009 by the Spanish Supreme Court to pay a 5.2 million euros fine for tax fraud.
Sanchez Vicario was the first Spanish player to reach the top of women’s tennis rankings and represented her country a record five-times at the Olympics before her retirement in 2002.
Sanchez Vicario also tried her hand at coaching, working with former world No1 Caroline Wozniacki in 2015.
She had a court named after her at the Madrid Masters tournament, however, that has since been taken down as a result of her fraud conviction.
The remains a popular figure at Masters and Legends events on the global tennis circuit.