Former World No.1 tennis player Arantxa Sanchez Vicario is now broke and currently giving half her earnings to the bank to avoid a prison sentence after her ex-husband squandered her $41 million fortune, she claimed in a bombshell interview.
‘I fell blindly in love, and he really isn’t the person I thought he was,’ she told Spanish TV show ‘Universo Callejo,’ as quoted by The Sun.
In 2024, a Barcelona-based court found that she and her former husband Josep Santacana committed fraud by hiding assets in an effort to avoid a massive debt to Banque de Luxembourg. But while Santacana was sentenced to three years and three months in jail, Sanchez Vicario got a two-year suspended sentence as a first-time offender.
The former couple, who divorced in 2019, was also ordered to pay €6.6million ($7.5 million, £5.6m) in compensation.
But as the four-time Grand Slam winner told ‘Universo Callejo,’ she knew nothing of her husband’s financial dealings.
‘I focused on playing tennis and never handled my own financial affairs because I didn’t know how,’ she said, according to The Sun. ‘I trusted my husband… And the [€36million] vanished. I was left to shoulder the entire burden.’
Former World No.1 tennis player Arantxa Sanchez Vicario is now broke and currently giving half her earnings to the bank to avoid a prison sentence, she claimed in a bombshell interview
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and her now-ex husband Josep Santacana are seen in 2012
Josep Santacana talks to the press in Barcelona during his trial on September 12, 2023
There are some varying accounts on how she’s avoided prison.
In 2024, The Athletic reported that it is customary in Spain for first-time offenders sentenced to two years or less to have those prison terms suspended.
But as she told ‘Universo Callejo,’ it was only through a financial arrangement with the bank that she managed to stay free.
‘I did not go to jail because I am paying 50 percent of my earnings to the bank,’ she said. ‘I am complying when deep down I was a victim.
‘It was a shock,’ she continued. ‘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 Daily Mail has sought comment from Santacana’s attorney.
In addition to her four Grand Slam singles titles, Sanchez Vicario also has a pair of Olympic silver and a pair of Olympic bronze medals from the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games
Sanchez Vicario smiles after falling to Monica Seles (left) at the 1991 French Open in Pairs
The 54-year-old Sanchez Vicario was part of the generation of tennis stars that followed Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. Along with Germany’s Steffi Graf and Yugoslavian-American star Monica Seles, Sanchez Vicario was part of a trio that dominated the sport from 1988 until the mid-1990s arrivals of Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati and the Williams sisters.
In addition to her four Grand Slam singles titles, Sanchez Vicario also has a pair of Olympic silver and a pair of Olympic bronze medals from the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games.
She and Santacana share a daughter, born in 2009, and a son who was born two years later.
Sanchez Vicario previously accused her parents and older brother of mismanaging her finances in a three-year court battle that ended with a private settlement in 2015.
Prior to that, she was forced to pay back taxes and penalties after falsely claiming to be a resident of Andorra when she really lived in her native Barcelona.
