Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (born December 18, 1971, in Barcelona, Spain) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from Spain. Her full name is Arαnzazu (Arantxa) Isabel Maria Sanchez Vicario. During her career, she won 4 Grand Slam singles titles and 6 Grand Slam doubles titles. Career Sanchez Vicario started playing tennis at age four, when she followed her older brothers Emilio Sanchez and Javier Sanchez (both of whom became professional players) to the court and hit balls against the wall with her first racquet. Arantxa Sanchez Vicario surprised the tennis world in 1989 when, as a 17-year-old, she became the youngest winner of the women's singles title at the French Open, defeating World No. 1 Steffi Graf in the final. (Monica Seles broke the record the following year when she won the title at age 16.)
Sanchez Vicario's most successful year as a singles player was 1994, when she won both the French Open and U.S. Open singles titles. She won eight tournaments that year. Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was a singles finalist at least twice in all four Grand Slam singles events. Her win-loss record in Grand Slam singles finals was 48 (37 against Graf and Seles). Her fourth and final Grand Slam singles title was at the 1998 French Open. Sanchez Vicario was the World No. 1 singles player in 1995 for 12 weeks. She was the first woman since Martina Navratilova in 1987 to simultaneously hold the No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles. Arantxa Sanchez Vicario won six women's doubles Grand Slam titles, including the U.S. Open in 1993 (with Helena Sukova) and Wimbledon in 1995 (with Jana Novotna). She also won four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. In 1991, Sanchez Vicario helped Spain win its first-ever Fed Cup title, defeating the United States in the final. She was a member of Spanish teams that won the Fed Cup four additional times in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998. Sanchez Vicario holds the record for the most singles and doubles wins by any player in Fed Cup competition, with 72 victories. She also holds the records for most ties played (58) and most years played (16).
She represented Spain in five events at the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games, winning two silver and two bronze medals. Over the course of her career, Sanchez Vicario won 29 singles titles and 69 doubles titles. She married in August 2000 to sports journalist Joan Vehils, but her marriage lasted only 10 months. She separated from her husband in May 2001, then announced her retirement from the game shortly after. She attempted a return to the tour in 2004, playing in selected doubles events. In 2005, Tennis Magazine put her in 27th place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era. In 2007, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She was only the third Spanish player (and the first Spanish woman) to be inducted. Career statistics Grand Slam singles finals Wins (4) Runner-ups (8) Notes Vicario is not her married name. It is her mother's maiden name. In the Spanish naming system, every person has two surnames: the first one comes from the father, the second from the mother. A woman therefore never changes surnames, regardless of whether she marries or divorces. When she started her professional career, she was known as Sanchez but later requested that her mother's maiden name be added. Her two brothers, Emilio and Javier, were also known as Sanchez Vicario in the Spanish-speaking world.
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