The Ladies Open Lausanne originally founded in 1899 as the Swiss International Championships. It is a women's professional tennis tournament which is currently played in
Lausanne but has played in a number of locations in
Switzerland.
History
The
Swiss International Championships was founded in 1897 as a men's only event and staged at the Grasshopper Club, Zurich under the auspices of the
Swiss Lawn Tennis Association. In 1898 the Swiss Lawn Tennis Association staged the event at Château d’Oex. In 1899 an open women's singles event was added to the schedule, when the venue was still in Saint Moritz.
It was then hosted at multiple locations throughout its run including Gstaad. The first edition of the Gstaad International tournament was played in 1915 at the Gstaad Palace Hotel, which was known at the time as the Royal Hotel, Winter & Gstaad Palace, and was organized in collaboration with the Lawn Tennis Club (LTC) Gstaad. In 1968 the tournament was renamed the Swiss Open International Championships or simply Swiss Open Championships, and was then staged permanently at Gstaad. The women's event was called the Gstaad International from 1969.
The event was called the WTA Swiss Open from 1977 to 1985, and was played on outdoor
clay courts. The tournament underwent a name change in 1986, when it was titled the European Open until its discontinuation. It formed part of the
Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour. When the WTA introduced the tiering format to its circuit, the event gradually moved up, from being a Tier V in 1988–1989, a Tier IV from 1990 to 1992, and a Tier III for its remaining years.[citation needed] The WTA announced that the tournament would return in Gstaad as a clay event on the
2016 Tour,[1][2] replacing another clay court event
held in Bad Gastein.
Four Swiss players won the event:
Viktorija Golubic in 2016 as well as
Manuela Maleeva (who formerly represented
Bulgaria) in 1991 won the singles, and
Xenia Knoll (in 2016) as well as
Christiane Jolissaint won the doubles, the latter on three occasions: 1983, 1984, and 1988. Maleeva holds the record, along with
Chris Evert, for most singles wins; both players won the event three times, and Maleeva finished runner-up a further three occasions.