Cilly Aussem

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Cilly Aussem bigraphy, stories - Tennis player

Cilly Aussem : biography

4 January 1909 – 22 March 1963

German stamp issued in 1988 in the [[Women in German history series]] Cilly Aussem (Cologne, 4 January 1909 – 22 March 1963 in Portofino, Italy) was a German female tennis player.

She was the first German to win the women’s singles title at Wimbledon in 1931. She also won the women’s single titles at the French Championships and German Championships in 1931. Aussem’s coach and mixed doubles partner was Bill Tilden. They won the mixed doubles title at the 1930 French Championships.

According to Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Aussem was ranked in the world top ten in 1928, 1930, 1931, and 1934, reaching a career high of World No. 2 in those rankings in 1930 and 1931 just behind Helen Wills Moody.

Trip to South America and illness

All seemed to be prepared for a great international career when something happened that stopped Aussem’s rapid rise. Celebrating the successful year of 1931, Aussem and her friend and teammate, Irmgard Rost, decided to travel to Argentina and Brazil. Aussem won some tournaments there but also caught a serious liver inflammation. Back in Germany, she underwent surgery from which she recovered only very slowly. During the two years she was not allowed to participate in sports, she dreamed about a comeback.

In 1933, Aussem returned to the courts but was not able to regain her form. In 1934, she again reached ninth place in the worldwide rankings but started losing to players she had always beaten. She lost at Wimbledon to Helen Jacobs in a quarterfinal and decided to quit the tour at the young age of 25.

Breakthrough

Aussem suffered from eye inflammation throughout 1929 but in 1930 she had her breakthrough. With Tilden, she won all the mixed double titles on the Riviera that season. At the French Championships, Aussem and Tilden defeated the world’s top two mixed doubles teams, Elizabeth Ryan / Jean Borotra and Eileen Bennett Whittingstall / Henri Cochet, and took the French title. Aussem also reached a singles semifinal, where she lost to Helen Jacobs.

At Wimbledon, Aussem faced Ryan in a semifinal. The match ended unexpectedly. While running, Aussem tumbled, fell, and lost consciousness. After that incident, health problems hampered the remainder of Aussem’s tennis career. Her eyes became more and more sensitive, so that she had to spend hours in a darkened room waiting for her matches to start.

But Aussem’s best tennis result was still was to come. At the end of 1930, just three years after starting to play in international championships, she reached second place in the world rankings.

Grand Slam singles tournament timeline

Tournament 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 Career SR
Australia A A A A A A A A 0 / 0
France QF 3R SF SF W QF 2R SF 1 / 8
Wimbledon 2R QF 4R SF W 1R A QF 1 / 7
United States A A A A A A A A 0 / 0
SR 0 / 2 0 / 2 0 / 2 0 / 2 2 / 2 0 / 2 0 / 1 0 / 2 2 / 15

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.

Private life after tennis

During her winter holidays in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, Aussem met her Italian husband-to-be, Earl Fermo Murari dalla Corte Bra. The wedding took place in Munich in March 1936 and the pair moved to Mombasa, Kenya. During her stay there she contracted malaria. Aussem spent the last two decades of her life mainly in her husband’s castle in Portofino. Very rarely did people notice her as a discrete spectator at tennis tournaments.