Lili de Alvarez

Lili de Alvarez

Lili de Alvarez (May 9, 1905 – July 8, 1998) was a Spanish multi-sport competitor, an international tennis champion, an author, and a journalist.

Elia María González-Alvarez y López-Chicheri was born at the Hotel Flora in Rome, Italy during a stay by her affluent Spanish parents. She was raised in Switzerland and from an early age began competing in a variety of sports. At age eleven, she won her first ice skating competition, and then at age 16, she won the Saint-Moritz ice skating championship. She won her first tennis tournament at age fourteen. An all-around sportsperson, Alvarez was an alpine skier, equestrian, and an auto racer who won the "Campeonato de Cataluña de Automovilismo" at age nineteen.

Alvarez was a pioneer in women's tennis in Spain and was her country's most dominant player during the 1920s. Between 1926 and 1928, she reached three consecutive singles finals at Wimbledon. According to American tennis champion Helen Wills Moody, who defeated Alvarez twice in Wimbledon singles finals, Alvarez' game was an "unusually daring one."

In 1929, Alvarez teamed up with the Dutch player Kea Bouman to win the women's doubles title at the French Championships. The following year, Alvarez won the singles title at the Italian Championships, an accomplishment that was not repeated by another female Spaniard for 63 years until Conchita Martínez won the Italian Open in 1993. Alvarez and Bill Tilden were the runner-ups in the mixed doubles competition at the 1927 French Championships.

In 1927, Alvarez authored a book in English published in London under the title "Modern Lawn Tennis."

In 1931, she shocked the staid tennis world by playing at Wimbledon in a divided tennis skirt specially made by designer Elsa Schiaparelli that was the forerunner of shorts. That year, Alvarez began reporting on the political events in Spain for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail.

In 1934, Alvarez married the Count of Valdéne, a French aristocrat and diplomat, and played for three years on the international tennis circuit as "Countess Valdéne."

In 1939, she lost her only child and the couple soon separated. She returned home to Spain in 1941 where she continued to be active in sports and began writing on religious and feminist topics, publishing her book "Plenitud" (Fullness) in 1946. She actively supported the worldwide feminist movement and in 1951 gave a speech entitled "La batalla de la feminidad" at the Hispanic-American Feminist Congress. Over the years, she wrote several more books.

Alvarez died in Madrid in 1998.

Grand Slam singles finals

Runner-ups (3)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1926	Wimbledon	Kitty McKane Godfree	6-2, 6-0
1927	Wimbledon	Helen Wills Moody	6-2, 6-4
1928	Wimbledon	Helen Wills Moody	6-2, 6-3

Grand Slam singles tournament timeline

A = did not participate in the tournament.

SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

See also

• Performance timelines for all female tennis players who reached at least one Grand Slam final

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