Charlotte Dod (1871-1960) was an English multi-sport athlete, best known as a tennis player.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. And this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today we’re talking about perhaps the first superstar of women’s sports. She swept the competition all the way back in the Victorian Era! She is listed among the most versatile female athletes of all time by the Guinness Book of World Records, and for good reason! She excelled in sports from tennis, to field hockey, to ice skating. Let’s talk about Charlotte Dod.
Charlotte Dod, also called Lottie, was born on September 24, 1871 in Bebington, England. She was the youngest of four children -- all of whom were talented athletes. William Dod, Lottie’s older brother, would later win an Olympic gold medal in archery! Her father, Joseph Dod, made enough money with his cotton trading business to provide his children with an education from private tutors.
The origins of the game we know as tennis today are disputed, but in 1983 Major Walter Clopton Wingfield published a book of rules and took out a patent. The sport was then called “Lawn Tennis.” It became a popular game for the English upper class. When Lottie was nine, two tennis courts were built near her family’s estate, so Lottie and her siblings took up the sport. Lottie and her older sister Annie took their interest in the game further than some casual garden parties.
In 1883, when she was eleven years old, Lottie entered her first tennis tournament alongside her sister. Though they didn’t win, Lottie caught the eye of a journalist who wrote, "Miss L. Dod should be heard of in the future".
Lottie stuck with tennis and continued entering tournaments in the years that followed. A series of incredible performances put her on the map. In one tournament, she nearly beat a reigning Wimbledon champion. Then, at the Waterloo competition, she won her first singles title.
By 1887, after steadily winning tournaments, Lottie was well known as a first-class player. She even partnered with a seven-time Wimbledon doubles champion at the Irish Championships.
What made Lottie so incredible at tennis was her uniquely aggressive style. She was way ahead of her time. In the late 1800s, women played tennis with long skirts and restrictive corsets, which impacted their play. By studying men’s tennis and perfecting their techniques, Lottie was able to get an upper hand on her opponents. She hit a lot harder and might have been the first player to habitually hit the ball just before the top of its bounce, giving her more rebound speed. The press started to call Lottie the “Little Wonder.”
At 15 years old, Lottie entered her first Wimbledon championship -- and swept the competition. She beat her final opponent in just ten minutes to become the youngest Wimbledon singles winner.
Lottie continued to win one tournament after another. She set a record by winning five Wimbledon titles, and she only lost five singles matches in her whole career.
In 1893, Lottie played in and won two tournaments. On that strong note, she decided to retire from tennis competitions and move on to other sports.
Two years later, she traveled to winter sports haven St. Moritz and passed a prestigious figure skating event called the St. Moritz Ladies Skating Test. She later became the second woman ever to pass the men’s version of that test. She took up mountain climbing with her older brother and raced on a famous toboggan track in Switzerland.
In 1897, Lottie also took up the new game of women’s field hockey. She helped found a team, became its captain and led the team to win every game for which she was present. Two years later, she played for the English national women’s field hockey team and helped them beat Ireland 3-1. In the following year’s match, she scored both goals in the Ireland game for a 2-1 victory.
After taking a time out from field hockey for a year due to lower back pain, Lottie took up another unexpected sport: golf. The Ladies’ Golf Union was brand new, and Lottie helped create a golf team in Essex county. This was the first sport Lottie found difficult to master. Though she regularly entered women’s golf championships, she didn’t win quite as often. Still, in the 1904 British Ladies Amateur, Lottie narrowly beat a previous golf champion. That made her the first woman to win both British tennis and golf championships.
In 1905, Lottie and her brothers sold their estate and moved to the southern market town of Newbury. There, they all started seriously competing in archery. It was a fitting choice for the family, since one of their ancestors commanded the English archers at the legendary Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
After winning her first archery tournament in 1906 and placing well for the next three years, Lottie gained a spot on the British Olympic Team. She won the silver medal.
A few years later, Lottie wound down her sports career and moved with her brother Willy to a new house in the riverside town Bideford. When World War I hit, Lottie served as a nurse for the British Red Cross. Though persistent back pain kept her from being transferred out of the country, she earned a Service Medal for working more than 1,000 hours over the course of the war.
After the War, Lottie lived a relatively quiet life. She attended the Wimbledon Championships every year until her late 80’s. She passed away in a nursing home in 1960, at age 88. Those who were present said she was listening to the Wimbledon tournament on the radio when she died.
Lottie Dod was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1983, and the International Women's Hall of Fame in 1986. It’s hard to overstate her influence in the world of sports and her incredible versatility, as an accomplished player of tennis, ice skating, sledding, field hockey, golf, and archery. In a time when women didn’t have many opportunities to play sports, she inspired female athletes around the world.
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