The Italian Championships is without question one of the premier titles to win in tennis. At one stage, many had a higher regard for it than the Australian Open and it ranked below the French Open in prestige. Bud Collins, the world renowned tennis historian and author of THE BUD COLLINS HISTORY OF TENNIS, summarizes the Italian Championships in this excerpt from his famed book, available here for $35.95 here:http://www.amazon.com/The-
***
Although the Italian International Championships was launched in Milan in 1930, where American Big Bill Tilden captured one of his last amateur titles, the dictator Mussolini wanted the event in his capital, Rome, and directed that Il Foro Italico, be constructed to accommodate the tournament. (Mussolini, strictly a hacker, had a private court and pro, Mario Belardinelli.)
The Foro, originally named for Mussolini, a handsome clay court complex beside the Tiber, boasts a marble arena surrounded by sporting statuary, and terraced outer courts ringed by Respighi’s Pines of Rome. It welcomed the Championships in 1935, the men’s title won by another American, Wilmer Hines. Subsequently shut down by political uncertainties in 1936, then World War II, the tournament didn’t resume until 1950, missing four post-war years as punishment by the International Tennis Federation for Italy’s wartime role as an Axis nation. From 1980-84, the women’s tournament was exiled to Perugia, then Taranto in 1985, abandoned in 1986, but restored to Rome in 1987. The Championships, becoming “open” in 1969, is now a combined event for men and women.
The Tennis Club Milano was the original home of the event before the move to Rome. In 1961, for just one year, the tournament was shifted to Sporting Club Torino. The only unseeded champions of the event were Marty Mulligan (AUS) in 1963; Julie Heldman (USA) in 1969; Felix Mantilla (ESP) in 2003; Martina Hingis (SUI) in 2006. The tie-breaker was adopted in 1971. One peculiar trans-Atlantic match was the 1976 men’s doubles final. Rained out in Rome, it was later played in Houston, Texas.