The Ladies Open Lausanne was originally founded in 1899 as the

Swiss International Championships The Swiss International Championships or simply the Swiss Championships was a combined men's and women's clay court tennis tournament established by the Swiss Lawn Tennis Association, and first played at Grasshopper Club, Zurich, Switzerland in 189 ...

. It was a women's professional tennis tournament last held in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

but has been held in a number of locations in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

History

The

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

were staged at the following locations throughout its run including

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

Champéry Champéry (; ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Monthey (district), Monthey in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Valais in Switzerland. History Champéry is first mentioned in 1286 as ''Champery''. The Ho ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Gstaad Gstaad ( , ) is a town in the German language, German-speaking section of the Canton of Bern in southwestern Switzerland. It is part of the municipality of Saanen and is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst high society ...

Les Avants Les Avants is a village in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located in the municipality of Montreux, in the east of the canton, in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut. It lies north-east of the town of Montreux and east of Lausann ...

Montreux Montreux (, ; ; ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, Swiss municipality and List of towns in Switzerland, town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Swiss Alps, Alps. It belongs to the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut (district), Riviera-Pays ...

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

Lucerne Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...

Ragatz Ragatz, also known as "''Old Baths Pfäfers''" or "''Old Baths of Pfäfersin''" in the 19th century and earlier, was a famous watering-place in the Swiss village of Bad Ragaz, situated on the left bank of the Rhine, and by rail 22 km north of ...

St. Moritz St. Moritz ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is a high Alpine resort town in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about above sea level. It is Upper Engadine's major town and a municipality in the administrative region of Maloja in the Swiss ...

Zermatt Zermatt (, ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Visp (district), Visp in the German language, German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a year-round population of about 5,800 and is cl ...

, and

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

from 1897 to 1967. The event was called the WTA Swiss Open from 1977 to 1985, and was played on outdoor

clay court A clay court is one of the types of tennis court on which the sport of tennis is played. Clay courts are built on a foundation of crushed stone, brick, shale, and other construction aggregate, aggregate, with a thin layer of fine clay particles ...

s. 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 The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. The association governs the WTA Tour, which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women, and was founded to create a better future fo ...

(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. The WTA announced that the tournament would return in Gstaad as a clay event on the 2016 Tour, replacing another clay court event held in Bad Gastein. Four Swiss players won the event:

Viktorija Golubic Viktorija Golubic (; ; born 16 October 1992) is a Swiss professional tennis player. On 28 February 2022, she reached her career-high singles WTA ranking of No. 35. On 17 April 2023, she peaked at No. 61 in the doubles rankings. She is the curre ...

in 2016 as well as

Manuela Maleeva Manuela Georgieva Maleeva (; born 14 February 1967) is a Bulgarian former professional tennis player. She played on the WTA Tour between 1982 and 1994. Through her marriage, Maleeva began representing Switzerland officially from January 1990 ...

(who formerly represented

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

) in 1991 won the singles, and

Xenia Knoll Xenia Knoll ( sr-Cyrl, Ксенија Кнол, Ksenija Knol; born 2 September 1992) is a Swiss tennis player. Knoll has won two doubles titles on the WTA Tour and one WTA 125 doubles title, as well as four singles and 30 doubles titles on the ...

(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 Christine Marie Evert (born December 21, 1954) is an American former professional tennis player. One of the most successful players of all time, she was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 2 ...

, for most singles wins; both players won the event three times, and Maleeva finished runner-up a further three occasions. In November 2023, it was announced that the tournament would cease existing, with the license bought out along with another WTA 250 tournament to form a WTA 500 tournament elsewhere.

Past finals

Singles

Doubles

Notes

References

External links

*
ITF Women's Circuit

WTA website
{{navboxes, title=Previous women's tournament categories (1990–2020) , list1= {{WTA International tournaments {{WTA Tier III tournaments {{WTA Tier IV tournaments WTA 250 tournaments Tennis tournaments in Switzerland Recurring sporting events established in 1968 Sport in the Canton of Bern Sport in Lausanne Clay court tennis tournaments