First years In September 1909,
Luis de Uhagón of Madrid,
Jorge Barrié of San Sebastian,
Ernest Witty and
Manuel Tey of Barcelona, among others, founded the Lawn-Tennis Association of Spain (), which would become the
Royal Spanish Tennis Federation in 1940. To enhance the prestige and sporting significance of the ALTE, it was decided to establish the Spanish Championships, with its first tournament taking place in 1910 on the courts of the Madrid Lawn-Tennis Club, which is currently part of the gardens of the Italian Embassy in the
Salamanca district. In 1923, the tournament expanded with the addition of the men's doubles event, which was won by
Antonio Juanico and
Ricardo Saprissa, the latter having also played as a
goalkeeper for
RCD Espanyol in Barcelona. The first women's singles event was held in
Santander in 1925, and it was won by
Concha Liencres, while the first women's doubles was won by the pair Josefa Gomar and Baroness de Segur. Two years later, in 1927, Gomar paired with Flaquer to win the first mixed doubles event. In its first years, the women's singles event was dominated by
Bella Dutton, who won five championships, including a three-peat in 1931–1933, a feat that was immediately matched by
Josefa Chávarri in 1934–1936, but she was unable to break the record because of the outbreak of the Civil War, after which she won two more titles (1941 and 1943) for a total of five, a record that was broken by
María Josefa Riba, who won seven consecutive titles between 1944 and 1950, followed by eight in 1953. Since then, both
Pilar Barril and
Carmen Perea have won 9 titles each.
Golden age The Spanish Championship was quite popular during the 1960s with the emergence of tennis players such as
Andrés Gimeno,
Manuel Santana, and
Manuel Orantes. ==Results==