Valda Lake

Valda Lake was the daughter of English international and champion table tennis player Pam Mortimer, who was a relative of the 1961 the Wimbledon tennis champion Angela Mortimer. Valda’s father was a journalist with Birmingham’s Sports Argus. Lake was educated at Marist Lodge and Croft Lodge, convent schools in her native Devon.

Lake made her Olympic début at the 1996 Atlanta Games and reached the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles with Clare Wood, but they lost in straight sets to the eventual gold medallists, Gigi Fernandez and Mary Joe Fernandez of the USA.

Lake’s highest WTA rankings were 172 singles (1988) and 56 doubles (1994). Her only Federation Cup appearance (now the Billie Jean Cup) was in the Group One defeat by Belarus in 1986, and Lake lost her only match, in the doubles with Wood.

After ending her playing career, Lake moved to Los Angeles and opened a gallery called “Wallspace” specialising in contemporary abstract, urban, street, and pop art. She also worked as a set director for television commercials and worked with some big-name companies like Apple, Honda, Samsung, Toyota, UPS, and more.