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Ex-world No1 tennis participant who made Wimbledon last sentenced to 2 years in jail

Former tennis celebrity Arantxa Sanchez Vicario has been sentenced to 2 years in jail.

The Spaniard – who reigned as world No1 on the peak of her profession and received 4 Grand Slam titles – has been punished after concealing belongings regardless of owing round €6million (round £5.1m) to the Bank of Luxembourg. Sanchez Vicario and her ex-husband, Josep Santacana, took out a mortgage value an identical sum to assist pay an present £4.5m positive for fraud in opposition to the Treasury.

In addition to Sanchez Vicario’s two-year sentence, Santacana was handed a jail time period of three years and three months for the concealment of belongings. The former couple – who have been divorced in 2019 – appeared in entrance of a Barcelona courtroom to find their destiny on Wednesday (January 17).

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Despite her jail sentence, four-time Olympic medallist Sanchez Vicario will not seen the within of a jail cell offered she and ex-spouse Santacana pay again the £5.5m owed to the Bank of Luxembourg in compensation. That can be contingent on avoiding related offences in future.

This courtroom case involving Sanchez Vicario – who reached back-to-back Wimbledon finals in 1995 and 1996, in addition to profitable one doubles title at SW19 – has dragged on for greater than a decade. The 52-year-old was first discovered responsible of tax evasion in 2009 and ordered to repay the Bank of Luxembourg after its mortgage helped the previous tennis ace and her then-husband pay the back-taxes.



Arantxa Sanchez Vicario as she leaves the last day of the trial accused of asset stripping, at the Ciutat de la Justicia, on 15 September, 2023
The four-time Grand Slam winner has been punished for concealing belongings



Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and her husband Josep Santacana leave the morgue for her father Emilio Sanchez Benito after her family expels her from morgue
Sanchez Vicario and ex-husband Josep Santacana in 2016

After a number of years making an attempt to recoup the mortgage, a Spanish courtroom sided with the financial institution in 2014. However, Sanchez Vicario and Santacana have been discovered to have hid their belongings forward of a legal courtroom trial, throughout which period the unique mortgage was accruing curiosity.

Sanchez Vicario had been quoted in a 2012 memoir saying her dad and mom had squandered $60m of her profession earnings. However, the previous star’s mom has denied these claims, and it is understood she and her dad and mom have since reconciled.



The ex-husband of tennis player Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Josep Santacana, attends to the media at the exit of the last day of the trial accused of asset stripping
Santacana obtained a harsher sentence

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Real property developer Santacana obtained an extended sentence because it was decided he had data and “direct interest” in managing belongings. Sanchez Vicario, alternatively, copped a lighter punishment after the ruling discovered it “absolutely credible ” that she “had no knowledge of asset management nor, probably, any interest”.