Police Pursuing Tanner

MIAMI -- Roscoe Tanner, the former Australian Open champion and Davis Cup winner, on Wednesday denied allegations of fraud as police in Florida revealed that they are actively seeking his arrest.

Tanner, 51, a Davis Cup winner in 1981 and former Wimbledon finalist, is accused of swindling Tampa yacht broker Gene Gammon out of $36,000 over the purchase of a yacht, and faces arrest if he returns to the United States. He is currently in Karlsruhe, Germany.

“I am sorting it,” Tanner, who served as the director of tennis at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks from its inception in 1989 to 1995, said of the fraud allegation. “I haven’t skipped off with anybody’s money.”

Arrest warrants were issued last year for Tanner, the 1977 Australian Open champion, on allegations of grand theft, passing a worthless check and a failure to maintain child support payments. Gammon alleges that a check for the 32-foot yacht bounced, and Tanner skipped the country before the broker was able to get the money back.

Tanner claimed he would follow “the proper methods, whatever the proper methods are,” to answer the charges against him.

However, neither the Florida State Attorney’s Office, nor the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department, who are investigating the fraud allegations, had heard from Tanner on Wednesday and confirmed that the criminal claims stand.