{"id":74772,"date":"2025-08-16T19:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/74772\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T19:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:35:14","slug":"ex-no-1-tennis-star-was-left-penniless-as-bailiffs-took-away-all-her-furniture-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/74772\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-No.1 tennis star was left penniless as bailiffs took away all her furniture | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catherine Tanvier had the tennis world at her feet when she was a teenager. A former French No. 1 and top 20 player, she became one of the most promising players of the 1980s, starting by winning junior Wimbledon<\/a> and beating legends like Billie Jean King when she took to the professional ranks.<\/p>\n

But the harrowing details of Tanvier\u2019s home life remained a secret until she published her memoir, Declassee: De Roland-Garros au RMI, roughly translating to Withdrew: From the French Open to the Dole, in 2007.<\/p>\n

The 1983 Freiburg Open champion was forced to become the family\u2019s main earner as a teenager when her dad left home.<\/p>\n

But she was left with nothing when she bailed her estranged father out of tax difficulties, and then had the tax man come to her own door, asking for all of her winnings.<\/p>\n

Following her parents\u2019 divorce, Tanvier became the provider for a family of five. \u201cI was winning the salary of an adult person in a week, but travelling is expensive, paying fees is so expensive,\u201d she told the Irish Times.<\/p>\n

When Tanvier was in her 20s, revenue collectors came to her door. At the time, they didn\u2019t know how to tax a professional tennis player. They wanted her \u00a3371k ($500k) winnings and ended up taking everything – including the family\u2019s furniture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the very first professional living there. All the males were living in Switzerland or London, so no tax. Tax people didn\u2019t know how to tax a professional tennis player,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I didn\u2019t have the money. They came to my place. They took everything, except that it wasn\u2019t my furniture, it was my mom\u2019s. They wanted to humiliate me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tanvier\u2019s candid autobiography doesn\u2019t shy away from the dark side of her life away from tennis, as she recalls her battle with depression, a suicide attempt, and stories of alcohol and drug abuse.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 20 told Women Sports: \u201cYes, this book is the result of my anger. My journey has been tough. At 15, I was a professional player and the breadwinner for my family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI experienced some very difficult times, despite my achievements. Declassee: De Roland-Garros au RMI is a violent book, but I needed to put these words down. The text is moving, poignant, harsh, cruel, but very real.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former world No. 20 eventually moved to Ireland for a few months. She now resides in Nice, and has since published several other books, including another biography, Detraquements, de la colere a la torpeur, in 2013.<\/p>\n

Tanvier also starred in Jean-Luc Godard’s movie Film Socialisme. After reading her book, the director asked to meet the former tennis star and \u201csaw something\u201d in her. The pair even played tennis together while filming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine Tanvier had the tennis world at her feet when she was a teenager. A former French No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,46067,33194,34811,82,593,1706],"class_list":{"0":"post-74772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-catherine-tanvier","11":"tag-financial-struggles","12":"tag-memoir","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis","15":"tag-tennis-section"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}