Former Stanford tennis star Roscoe Tanner was recently sentenced to two years in prison for violating probation after a grand theft conviction.

Tanner, Class of 1973, was “the single most important player to the resurrection of the program,” said current men’s tennis coach Dick Gould, who instructed Tanner while he was at Stanford.

Gould said he remembered that the 1960s were marked by USC and UCLA’s domination of collegiate tennis.

Stanford was always good during this period, he said, but was never able to compete with these two schools. Tanner was the first player to “believe we could beat them and have the skills and talent to do it,” he said. Apart from his ability, Gould said Tanner “was extremely popular among the players, and always displayed a great attitude.”

Tanner won the national doubles championship once, though he never won the singles title despite two finals appearances.

Even today, a large picture of him is displayed in the tennis team room.

“We definitely still talk about Tanner because he is one of the greatest players to come out of Stanford,” said current team member Eric McKean, a junior.

After graduating with a degree in political science, Tanner embarked on an impressive professional career. His dominating serve, heralded as the fastest of the day, helped him to win 18 titles, including one major — the 1977 Australian Open.

Since retiring from professional tennis, however, Tanner has encountered legal trouble. Over the past few years, he has spent time in prison in Germany, Florida and New Jersey, mostly due to his failure to make child support payments.

He was most recently convicted of grand theft, after writing a bad check for $35,595 to purchase a 32-foot boat. When the check bounced, authorities chased him through the states and into Germany, where they caught and convicted him. The judge sentenced Tanner to a 10-year probationary period in which to pay off his debt.

After his conviction, Tanner said he was turning his life around, and that he “regained [his] faith and felt a million percent better.” He wrote a tell-all autobiography, “Double Fault: My Rise and Fall, and My Road Back,” which chronicles his run-ins with the law and his supposed redemption.

However, Tanner was arrested several months ago in Tennessee for failing to keep up his probation payments. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to two years in prison by a court in Pinellas County, Fl.