Tennis mourns Italian icon Lea Pericoli

The Italian Tennis Federation announced Friday that Lea Pericoli, the flamboyant former national No.1 whose playing career captured the spirit of the Swinging Sixties, passed away on October 4. She was 89.

Born in Milan on March 22, 1935, Pericoli spent her formative years in Africa, after her businessman father, Filippo, moved the family to Ethiopia when Lea was a toddler. Given her first racquet at the age of 10, her love for the game only grew after she was sent to boarding school in Kenya.

By the age of 17, Pericoli was determined to forge a career in tennis and she moved back to Italy to pursue her dream – a decision that launched a lifetime of contribution to the sport, on court and off.

In a career that lasted from the early 1950s until the mid-70s, Pericoli captured an unmatched 27 national titles across singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

On the world stage, she reached the round of 16 at Roland Garros four times (1955, 1960, 1964, and 1971) and at Wimbledon on three occasions (1965, 1967 and 1970). She advanced to the semis in Paris in doubles and mixed doubles and, partnering Silvana Lazzarino, reached the championship match at the Italian Open five times.

Her personal highlight was, understandably, a win against Billie Jean King on the clay courts of Gstaad, Switzerland in 1969.

“All self-taught, my tennis was instinctive and wild,” Pericoli once said of her game. Contemporaries remember being driven crazy by her lobs and dropshots, among other tactical tricks.

A solid Top 20 player at her peak, Pericoli ranked as Italy’s No.1 for a record 14 years between 1959 and 1976, and if she didn’t hold the country’s top spot during this period she was inevitably the No.2.

In 1963, she was a member of Italy’s team at the inaugural staging of what is now the Billie Jean King Cup, going on to play in 17 ties over nine years, for an overall win-loss record of 15-15. In 2007, the ITF presented Pericoli with the Fed Cup Award of Excellence.

Results aside, Pericoli’s sense of style and adventure made her a glamorous figure on the global tennis scene. A favorite of British designer Ted Tinling, she took to the courts in all manner of eye-catching dresses, her outfits adorned with materials such as lace, lamé, tulle, feathers and mink. Her father didn’t always approve.

Indeed, not for nothing was she dubbed ‘La Divina.’ Although she attracted her share of modelling contracts, she wryly told the U.K’s Sunday Mirror: “I didn’t make any money from tennis, but if I’d been born 30 years later I would have become terribly rich, like Anna Kournikova.”

After stepping away from the tour at the age of 40, Pericoli broke barriers for women in media. She became a respected tennis and fashion writer, radio announcer, and the first female tennis commentator on Italian TV.

She also became a stalwart Fed Cup ambassador for Italy, a role that connected her to generations of Italian players.

Upon hearing the news of Pericoli’s passing, 2015 US Open champion Flavia Pennetta acknowledged her legacy when she wrote on Instagram: “I have been fortunate to know you and share with you amazing moments of my career and life. I will carry your precious teachings with me forever.”

Ingrid Löfdahl Bentzer, the former Swedish No.1 and WTA founding member, remembers a fiercely intelligent woman whose innate elegance and flair could serve as a distraction to the casual observer – at their peril.

“As an athlete, she celebrated a more traditional form of femininity but if there’s a trailblazer, that was Lea as well,” said Löfdahl Bentzer. “At a time when the focus was on American efforts to grow the game, she was part of the first wave of European players who fought to make things better on the women’s side, and she inspired those of us who followed to do the same.”

Pericoli overcame breast cancer in 2012, having beaten a uterine carcinoma in 1973, a battle that forced her to miss a couple of seasons before a brief return to the circuit in the mid-70s. Casting aside the taboos of the time, she was characteristically up-front about her diagnosis, and became a high-profile advocate for the Italian League for the Fight Against Tumours.

"Anyone seeking to become a champion fights a continuous war,” Pericoli once said. “It is a very educational sport that taught me a lot.”

“Lea was meticulous about her bouffant hair and she saw herself as a lioness, prowling around gracefully – but she had a heart of gold,” said Löfdahl Bentzer. “We had such a lot of fun over the years. She was adored by many, and her loss creates a void in a lot of people’s lives. She was a dame.”

The WTA family extends heartfelt condolences to Pericoli’s family and friends around the world.