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KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE

Former tennis star and Chattanooga native Roscoe Tanner is in trouble with the law... again.

According to information from the Knox County General Sessions Court, Tanner is accused of writing a $72,263.43 check to a Knoxville Toyota dealership for two Toyota Highlanders and refusing to return the vehicles when the check bounced.

Tanner appeared in court on Wednesday for the arraignment but did not enter a plea. A court hearing is set for July 8.

His attorney, Scott Green, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Tanner has had multiple legal issues, including a grand theft conviction in Florida in 2000 after bouncing a $35,595 check used to buy a 32-foot boat.

He was arrested in Germany by Interpol on a felony fugitive warrant for skipping out on the above referenced felony charges filed against him in Florida. He pleaded guilty, received an initial probationary sentence, and after violating the terms of that probation, was sentenced to two years in the Florida Dept of Corrections. After serving one year of his sentence, he was released one year early for "good behavior."

Tanner has also been arrested and jailed in Georgia for Criminal Contempt of Court and refusal to pay child support, and arrested and jailed in New Jersey for the same charges.

In California, Tanner has been charged at least a dozen times for criminal contempt of court or refusal to pay child support or for failing or refusing to appear in court as ordered. He has been convicted of criminal contempt of court three times, and served at least one term of under 45 days in the Orange County Jail, and he is on probation until 2012.

Tanner was a highly ranked player through the 1970s and won the 1977 Australian Open. 

OAKLAND(CA)TRIB

JAN. 19, 2006

He was a champion once. Roscoe Tanner had the fastest serve in tennis, won the 1977 Australian Open, reached the final of Wimbledon in 1979, earned $2 million, got a degree from Stanford.

Now he's behind bars.

For a long time.

Tanner never did a lot of planning on the courts. Or, it turns out, in his life.

``I don't think Roscoe knowingly would do anything to hurt anyone,'' said Dick Gould, the Hall of Fame coach at Stanford for whom Tanner was the first great player.

Not knowingly, perhaps, but unthinkingly. Uncontrollably.

A few days ago, Tanner, 54, was sentenced in Clearwater, Fla., to two years in prison for violating probation on a grand theft conviction.

Then he was arrested in Knox County, Tenn., last October, accused of violating probation by failing to make payments.

This for the man who in 1979 was No. 5 in the world, behind Bjorn Borg - who needed five sets to beat him in the Wimbledon final - John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis.

This for a man who was a star.

This for a man who lived in a dream world.

This for a man who couldn't separate fantasy from reality, couldn't understand that even if you had a 135 mph serve, you still had to pay your debts.

Still had be accountable to society, still couldn't father children from here to kingdom come and not support them. ``He's one of the greatest guys I ever knew,'' Gould said. ``It's a sad, sad story. He always saw his glass as overflowing. He just kept screwing things up.''

An appropriate phrase and, in a figurative sense, an accurate one.

The list of sins includes cheating, repeatedly, on his fiancee; cheating on his wife; divorcing his wife to be with another woman; cheating on his second wife; impregnating a women from an escort service during his second marriage; marrying a third wife and writing a bad check to pay for the honeymoon; writing a bad check to buy a $35,000 boat, then using the boat as collateral for a $10,000 loan; fleeing the debts by going to Europe; spending 10 months in jail in Germany, Florida and New Jersey, before being sentenced.

Of course he has apologized. In print. His book, ``Double Fault: My Rise and Fall, and My Road Back,'' is one of redemption. And explanation. And justification.

``I was experiencing great difficulty supporting my wife, Margaret,'' the book begins, ``and our two daughters from her previous marriage, as well an assortment of alimony and child payments. ... Oh, and there was a boat, a deal that went sour in Florida that I still hadn't resolved to the owner's satisfaction.''

Meaning, he still owed $35,000.

Gould cannot be critical.

``He started this whole damn program,'' said Gould of Tanner and Stanford.

The Cardinal hadn't won a single NCAA team championship before Tanner, from the Chattanooga, Tenn., suburb of Lookout Mountain, enrolled in the fall of '69. Now, after Tanner and John McEnroe, Alex Mayer and Tim Mayotte, and so many others, Stanford has 17 titles.

``He was an honorable, fun guy, one of the nicest guys who ever played for me,'' Gould insisted. ``But he brought things on himself. And once the spiral began, it wouldn't stop.''

There was a tennis complex that went broke. And a string of tennis and fitness centers in which he lost money. And there was the woman from New Jersey in 1993, from the escort service, the one he found in the Yellow Pages, who said he fathered a child and to whom Tanner agreed to pay $500,000 - and didn't pay anything.

Every bad decision was followed by a poorer decision. He didn't make retribution. He only made excuses.

``I'm not proud of what I've done,'' he told the great tennis writer Bud Collins a year and a half ago. ``I made a lot of money, but I also made some bad deals and had some unfortunate marriages and liaisons. I was broke, but I was still trying to put up the front as a successful guy.''

He had been a successful guy, a guy who won a Grand Slam tennis championship. Now he's just another prisoner.

As his coach at Stanford, Dick Gould commented, it's a sad, sad, story.

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