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Lottie Dod

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Sports and games people

                                Lottie Dod
   Lottie Dod excelled in tennis, golf, hockey and archery, and competed
   in several more sports.
   Born 24 September 1871
        Bebington, Cheshire, England
   Died 27 June 1960
        Sway, England

   Charlotte "Lottie" Dod ( 24 September 1871 – 27 June 1960) was an
   English athlete best known as a tennis player. She won the Wimbledon
   Championships five times, the first when she was only fifteen, in the
   summer of 1887. She remains the youngest player to win the women's
   singles tournament, though Martina Hingis was three days younger when
   she won the women's doubles title in 1996.

   In addition to tennis, Dod competed in many other sports, including
   golf, field hockey, and archery. In addition to other successes, she
   won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship, played twice for the
   England women's national field hockey team (which she helped to found),
   and won a silver medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics in archery. The
   Guinness Book of Records has named her as the most versatile female
   athlete of all time, together with track and field athlete and fellow
   golf player Babe Zaharias.

Early life

   Dod was born in Bebington, Cheshire to Joseph and Margaret Dod. Joseph
   Dod, from Liverpool, had made a fortune in the cotton trade. The family
   was wealthy enough to provide for all members for life; Lottie and her
   brother Willy never had to work. Besides Willy, Lottie Dod had a
   sister, Annie, and another brother, Tony. Like their sister, they all
   excelled in sports. Annie was a good tennis player, golfer, ice skater
   and billiards player. Willy Dod won the Olympic gold medal in archery
   at the 1908 Games, while Tony was a regional level archer and a chess
   and tennis player. When Dod was nine years old, two tennis courts were
   built near the family's estate Edgeworth. Lawn tennis, invented in
   1873, was highly fashionable for the wealthy in England, and all of the
   Dod children started playing the game frequently.

Tennis

   Lottie Dod, here shown at age 14, debuted in tennis at age 11 and won
   her first Wimbledon title when she was 15. The press dubbed her the
   "Little Wonder".
   Enlarge
   Lottie Dod, here shown at age 14, debuted in tennis at age 11 and won
   her first Wimbledon title when she was 15. The press dubbed her the
   "Little Wonder".

   Together with Annie, who was eight years older, Dod entered her first
   tennis tournament, the 1883 Northern Championships in Manchester, at
   age eleven. They lost in the first round of the doubles tournament, but
   won the consolation tournament. One journalist noted that "Miss L. Dod
   should be heard of in the future". He turned out to be correct.

   At the same tournament in 1885, she came to prominence when she nearly
   beat reigning Wimbledon champion Maud Watson in the final, losing 8 –
   6, 7 – 5. Dod would win the doubles event (with Annie) and had earlier
   won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the Waterloo tournament.
   These performances earned her the nickname "Little Wonder" in the
   press.

   Slowly, Dod became an established top player, illustrated by the fact
   she partnered then seven-time Wimbledon doubles winner Ernest Renshaw
   for the first time in 1887. That same year, she also debuted at
   Wimbledon. Only six competitors, not including top player Watson,
   entered. Dod easily advanced through the first rounds to earn the right
   to challenge the defending champion^ 1, Blanche Bingley, whom she
   defeated 6–2, 6–0.

   The two would meet again in the final of the 1888 West of England
   Tournament. Although designated as a so-called "open" tournament, the
   officials made the remarkable decision to impose a handicap of 15^ 2 on
   Dod. She still managed to win against her opponent, now known by her
   married name, Blanche Hillyard. The Wimbledon final of 1888 was rematch
   of the previous year, and Dod again emerged victorious (6–3, 6–3).

   Lottie Dod's style of play, then regarded as unorthodox, now seems
   notably modern. She was perhaps the first player to advocate hitting
   the ball just before the top of the bounce and to adopt a modern,
   albeit single-handed, racquet grip. Her ground strokes were reported by
   contemporaries to be unusually firmly hit by the standards of the time,
   but - like many female players of the day - she served underhand and
   only rarely employed spin.

   Dod only entered one open tournament in 1889 (the Northern
   Championships, which she won), and failed to attend Wimbledon, much to
   the disappointment of her fans. Together with Annie and some friends,
   she was on a sailing trip off the Scottish coast, and didn't want to
   return in time for Wimbledon. This was followed by a complete absence
   from the game in 1890.

   After failing to do so in 1889, Dod was determined to win Wimbledon
   three times in a row, starting in 1891. Although it was her only
   competitive appearance of that season, she won her third Wimbledon
   title with ease, again by defeating Hillyard (6–2, 6–1).

   1892 saw Dod's first singles defeat in an open tournament since 1886,
   losing to Louise Martin of Ireland in the Irish Championships. It was
   the last of only five losses in her entire tennis career. She continued
   the year strongly, culminating in another easy Wimbledon victory over
   Hillyard.

   Dod's last tennis season as a competitive player was 1893, and she
   played in just two tournaments, winning both. On both occasions, she
   defeated Blanche Hillyard in three sets, despite a heavy fall in the
   Wimbledon final. Her record of five Wimbledon titles would not last for
   long, as Hillyard, after losing in the final to Dod five times, won her
   sixth title in 1900. Suzanne Lenglen broke Dod's record of three
   consecutive singles wins by winning from 1919 to 1923.

   Apart from entering women's tournaments, Dod sometimes also played and
   won matches against men (who usually played with a handicap), and on
   one occasion defeated star players Ernest Renshaw and George Hillyard
   (the husband of Blanche) when doubling with Herbert Baddeley.

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (5)

   Year Championship                Opponent in Final        Score in Final
   1887 Wimbledon Championships     Blanche Bingley          6-2, 6-0
   1888 Wimbledon Championships (2) Blanche Bingley Hillyard 6-3, 6-3
   1891 Wimbledon Championships (3) Blanche Bingley Hillyard 6-2, 6-1
   1892 Wimbledon Championships (4) Blanche Bingley Hillyard 6-1, 6-1
   1893 Wimbledon Championships (5) Blanche Bingley Hillyard 6-8, 6-1, 6-4

Winter sports

   Although tennis would remain Dod's favourite sport, she shifted her
   attention to other activities in the following years. In 1895, she
   joined her brother Tony on a trip to the winter sports resort of Sankt
   Moritz, which was very popular with English travellers. There, she
   passed the St. Moritz Ladies's Skating Test ( figure skating), the most
   prestigious skating for women at the time. Dod also rode the toboggan
   on the famous Sankt Moritz Cresta Run, and began mountaineering with
   her brother, climbing two mountains over 4,000 m in February 1896.

   After a long cycling trip in Italy, Lottie and Tony returned to
   England, only to come back to St Moritz in November, now accompanied by
   their mother and brother Willy. This time, Dod took the St. Moritz
   Men's Skating Test and passed, as the second woman ever. She also
   competed in curling. In the summer of 1897, she and Tony again ascended
   several mountains, this time in Norway.

Field hockey

   The sport of women's hockey was still rather young when Dod took up the
   game in 1897. She was one of the founding members of a women's hockey
   club in Spital. Playing as a central forward, she was soon named
   captain of the team. Club matches in which Dod played were won, while
   losses happened only in her absence.

   By 1899, Dod had made it to captain of the Cheshire county team, and
   represented her club at meetings of the women's hockey association for
   the northern counties. She first played in the English national team on
   21 March that year, winning 3–1 over Ireland.

   Both English goals in the 1900 England and Ireland rematch were scored
   by Dod, securing a 2–1 victory. Dod failed to attend the match against
   Wales, suffering from sciatica attacks which kept her from sporting for
   months.

   Although she had recovered by 1901, Dod would not play again in
   national or county matches. All members of the Dod family stopped
   attending sports events for a while after their mother died on 1 August
   1901, and Dod apparently lost her interest in field hockey during that
   period, although she did occasionally play for Spital Club until 1905.

Golf

   Few golf clubs allowed women to play around the time Lottie Dod first
   played golf at age fifteen. Unlike tennis, Dod found golf a difficult
   sport to master. By the time she got seriously interested in the sport,
   the Ladies Golf Union (LGU) had been founded, and women's golf had
   become a real sport.

   Dod helped establish a ladies' golf club at Moreton in 1894 and entered
   that year's National Championships ( matchplay) at Littlestone ( Kent).
   She was eliminated in the third round, but Dod's interest in the sport
   grew, and she became a regular competitor in the National Championships
   and other tournaments for the next few years. In 1898 and 1900 she
   reached the semi-finals of the National Championships, but was defeated
   narrowly both times. In 1900, she also played in an unofficial country
   match against Ireland, which the English won 37–18.

   Dod did not compete in golf in 1901, and hardly entered major
   tournaments in the next two years, but she did play in the 1904
   National Championships, held at Troon. She qualified for the
   semi-finals for the third time in her life, and won it for the first
   time. Her opponent in the final was May Hezlet, the champion of 1899
   and 1902. The match was very close, and the two were tied after 17
   holes. Hezlet missed her putt on the final hole narrowly, after which
   Dod grabbed an unexpected victory, becoming the first, and to date
   only, woman to win British tennis and golf championships.

   Following her victory, Dod sailed to Philadelphia, where she had been
   invited by Frances Griscom, a former American golf champion, to attend
   the American Ladies Championship as a spectator. Upon arrival, Dod
   found out the tournament regulations had been changed to allow for
   non-Americans to compete, and she was requested to compete. Her loss in
   the first round was a disappointment, but Dod persuaded several
   Americans to come and play in the British championships the following
   year.

   In the week before these 1905 championships, three international
   matches were planned, starting off with the first British-American
   international match. Dod was the only British player to lose a match,
   as the United Kingdom won 6–1. Dod then played for the English team in
   a 3–4 defeat against Scotland and a 4–3 win over Ireland, although she
   lost both her matches. Dod was then eliminated in the fourth round of
   the National Championships. It was to be her last appearance in golf.

Archery

            Olympic medal record
               Women's Archery
   Silver London 1908 Double National round

   In the autumn of 1905, Dod and her brothers sold "Edgeworth" and moved
   to a new home near Newbury, Berkshire. They had been practising archery
   from the times before, but all three became more serious now and joined
   the Welford Park Archers in Newbury. As one of their ancestors was said
   to have commanded the English longbowmen at the Battle of Agincourt,
   they found this an appropriate sport.

   Lottie Dod won her first tournament by 1906, and finished fifth in the
   Grand National Archery Meeting of 1906, 1907 and 1908. Dod's
   performances in the 1908 season earned her a spot on the British
   Olympic team. The field in the women's archery event consisted only of
   British women, but without the best archer of the era, Alice Legh. Dod
   led the competition, held in rainy conditions, after the first day but
   was surpassed by Queenie Newall on the second day, eventually taking
   second place with 642 points to Newall's 688. Her brother Willy fared
   better and surprisingly secured the gold medal in the men's
   competition.

   In 1910, Dod came close to winning the Grand National, which would have
   made archery the third sport in which she became a national champion.
   Both Lottie and her brother William led after day one, but moved down
   to second on the final competition day. After the Welford Archers were
   disbanded in late 1911, the Dods's interest in archery faded, meaning
   the end of Lottie Dod's long competitive sports career.

Later life

   In 1913, Willy and Lottie moved to a new house in Bideford (Tony had
   married in the meantime). When World War I broke out, Willy enlisted
   with the Royal Fusiliers, while his sister worked for the Red Cross in
   a military hospital in Speen.

   Dod wanted to be transferred to the war zones in France but was
   hampered by sciatica and never served as a nurse outside England. She
   did receive a Service Medal by the Red Cross for serving more than
   1,000 hours during the war.

   She then lived in London and Devon, and she never failed to attend the
   Wimbledon Championships until she was in her late eighties. After her
   brother Willy died in 1954, she lived in several nursing homes on the
   English south coast, eventually settling at the Birchy Hill Nursing
   Home in Sway. There she died, unmarried, at age 88, passing away while
   listening to the Wimbledon radio broadcasts in bed.

   Dod was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1983.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottie_Dod"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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