Between the wars
Chile · born Santiago, 1915 · died 1994 · right-handed · US champion 1937 and the first Latin American to be ranked world No. 1
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1937
US champion at Forest Hills, the first Latin American to win a major singles title
No. 1
World ranking in 1937, from A. Wallis Myers of the Daily Telegraph
4
Scottish singles titles: 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1946
2
Wimbledon singles quarter-finals, 1936 and 1937
83-4
Her win-loss record in 1936
Anita Lizana was born in Santiago on 19 November 1915. Her father, Roberto, was her first coach, and she was unbeaten in Chile by her early teens. In 1935 the Chilean federation and a fundraising drive by her father paid for her first trip to Europe, where she won seven titles. She was barely five feet tall and quick around the court, with a drop shot that opponents feared.
In 1936 she won 83 matches and lost four. She took the Irish, Kent, Northern, Scottish and South of England titles on grass, beating Dorothy Round in the Eastbourne final, and reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals as the eighth seed, losing to Helen Jacobs 6-2, 1-6, 6-4. In 1937 she won the British Hard Court Championships, was seeded third at Wimbledon and lost there to Simonne Mathieu in the quarter-finals, then crossed to the United States and won the US Championships at Forest Hills without dropping a set, beating Jadwiga Jędrzejowska 6-4, 6-2 in the final. She added the Pacific Coast title at Berkeley and finished the year ranked world No. 1.
In July 1938 she married the Scottish player and coal merchant Ronald Ellis at the Brompton Oratory in London and settled in Dundee. After that she played mainly in Britain, the war and her children ended her time at the top, and she competed as Anita Ellis. She won the Scottish title once more in 1946 and played her last Wimbledon in 1947. She died in 1994, aged 78, and her ashes were scattered in Dundee.
| US Championships 1937 | Beat three seeded players without losing a set on the way to the final, then beat Jadwiga Jędrzejowska of Poland 6-4, 6-2 |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon 1936 | Seeded eighth; beat Magda Baumgarten 6-1, 6-1 and Mary Heeley 6-3, 6-3, then lost a three-set quarter-final to the second seed and eventual champion, Helen Jacobs, 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 |
| Wimbledon 1937 | Seeded third; beat Betty Nuthall 6-3, 6-2 in the fourth round, then lost the quarter-final to the sixth seed, Simonne Mathieu, 6-3, 6-3 |
| Eastbourne 1936 | Won the South of England Championships, beating Dorothy Round, the 1934 Wimbledon champion, in the final in straight sets |
| Wimbledon record | Six appearances from 1935 to 1947, nine wins and six losses; she lost to Mathieu again in the second round in 1938 |
| Scottish Championships | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1935 | Women's singles†| |
| 1936 | Women's singles†| |
| 1937 | Women's singles†| |
| 1946 | Women's singles†| |
| Northern Championships | ||
| 1936 | Women's singles†| |
| 1937 | Women's singles†| |
| Irish Championships | ||
| 1936 | Women's singles†| |
| Kent Championships (Beckenham) | ||
| 1936 | Women's singles†| |
| Eastbourne | ||
| 1936 | Women's singles†South of England Championships | |
| US Championships | ||
| 1937 | Women's singles | |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"I still think that a possible second Suzanne Lenglen was lost to the tennis world when Anita Lizana married Ronald Ellis."
The person behind the player.
Santiago, 1935
Her father raised 120,000 pesos so that she could travel to Europe; the family was never well off, and it could never afford to go and watch her play there. She had five brothers, and her father later discovered another Chilean player, Luis Ayala.
Source: Al DÃa NewsEngland, 1935 to 1937
The British press called her the Smiling Señorita. She travelled with a translator who also served as her chaperone, and she is said to have started the custom of shaking hands with the chair umpire after a match. Lawn Tennis and Badminton called her "one of the best living losers" and noted that she would give up a tactical advantage for a moment the crowd could enjoy.
Source: Tennis AbstractRivals
Because she was small and ran down everything, her rivals nicknamed her La Ratita, "the little rat". A 1937 profile said her joy in life made her deadly drop shot "a sugar-coated pill".
Source: Al DÃa News; Tennis AbstractLondon, 1938
She met Ronald Ellis, a Scottish player, during a doubles match in Scotland. Her parents agreed to the marriage only when she asked for the third time, and on condition that the wedding wait until after Wimbledon 1938. She was 22 when they married at the Brompton Oratory, and she was expecting her first child by 1939.
Source: Tennis Abstract; WikipediaDundee, 1946
After the war, by then a mother living in Dundee, she won the Scottish Championships in Edinburgh in July 1946 and the Scottish Hard Court title at St Andrews in August. She was still winning a tournament as late as 1955.
Source: Wikipedia, citing the Dunlop Lawn Tennis Annual 1947; Tennis AbstractSantiago, 2015
In 2015 the main court of Chile's national tennis stadium in Santiago was named Court Central Anita Lizana in her honour.
Source: WikipediaFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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