Charlotte Dod

Charlotte Dod at the age of 20 (1891)

Charlotte "Lottie" Dod (born September 24, 1871 in Bebington , England ; † June 27, 1960 in Sway , England) was a British athlete who is best known for her success in tennis .

The Guinness Book of Records describes her, together with the athlete and golfer Babe Zaharias, as the most versatile female athlete of all time. Charlotte Dod not only excelled as a tennis player and has been the youngest ever winner of the Wimbledon Championships since her victory in women's singles in 1887 , she also won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship , played on the British national hockey team and won the Olympic Games in 1908 Play a silver medal in archery .

Life

The early years

Charlotte Dod was born in Bebington, Cheshire to Joseph and Margaret Dod. Joseph Dod, who was from Liverpool , had gotten rich from the cotton trade . The father's fortune was large enough to support his four children for a lifetime. Besides Charlotte and her brother went William Dod never a work by.

All four children of the Dod family were successful athletes and good tennis players. Tennis was a sport that the Englishman Walter Clopton Wingfield had developed from the Jeu de Paume and patented as Sphairistike in 1874 . The sport had quickly become popular as a sport among the wealthy classes of the UK. In 1880, when Charlotte Dod was nine years old, two tennis courts had been built near the Edgeworth family home and all of the Dod's children had played there regularly since then. Similar to Charlotte Dod, however, this wasn't the only sport they were good at. William Dod won a gold medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics . Annie Dod was a good golfer, ice skater, and pool player. Tony Dod also excelled as a chess player and archer.

The tennis player Charlotte Dod

Tennis successes

In 1883, at the age of eleven, Charlotte Dod competed in a tennis tournament for the first time. She took part in the Northern Championships in Manchester with her sister Annie, who is eight years older than her. The sisters already lost their first game, but then won the consolation round. A journalist already stated at this point that one would certainly hear more from Charlotte Dod in the future.

In 1885 Charlotte Dodd took part in the same tournament and became known nationwide because she was narrowly defeated by the Wimbledon winner Maud Watson in the final, which ended with 8-6 and 7-5. Charlotte Dod won the women's doubles together with her sister Annie. In a tournament in Waterloo shortly before, she had already won the women's singles, the women's doubles and the mixed doubles. Performances at these two tournaments led the press to occasionally refer to them as Little Wonder .

Charlotte Dod earned a reputation for being one of the best tennis players in Great Britain in the two years that followed. As early as 1887, the then only 15-year-old played in mixed doubles with Ernest Renshaw , who had already been successful in tennis doubles at Wimbledon several times. 1887 was also the year Charlotte Dod first took part in the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Only six participants had registered for the tournament. Charlotte Dod won the opening rounds with no problems, thereby gaining the right to challenge last year's Wimbledon champion Blanche Bingley .

In 1888 the two players met again in the final of the West of England Tournament. The tournament organizers had decided to charge Charlotte with a handicap of 15 penalty points, but she still won against her competitor, who after her marriage now competed under the name Blanche Hillyard. In the final of the tennis tournament at Wimbledon this year, the two also met and Charlotte Dodd won again with 6-3 and 6-3.

In 1889 she only took part in the Northern Championship, which she won and, to the disappointment of her fans, decided not to take part in the Wimbledon tennis tournament. At the time she was on a sailing trip on the Scottish coast with her sister Annie and some friends and did not want to interrupt this trip because of the tennis tournament. In 1890 she did not take part in any tournament. In 1891 she won the tournament at Wimbledon, where her final opponent was again Blanche Hillyard.

In 1892 Charlotte Dod lost her first tennis match since 1886. She was beaten by Mary Louisa Martin during the Irish Championships. It was the last loss of five in their entire tennis career. However, she won the tournament at Wimbledon again in a final, in which she met again with Blanche Hillyard.

Her last season as a tournament player was in 1893. She only took part in two tournaments, which she won both. Both times she defeated Blanche Hillyard in three sets, although a serious fall in the final of the Wimbledon Championships still endangered her victory. Charlotte Dod had won the Wimbledon Championships five times. This record was already set in 1900 by Blanche Hillyard, who won her sixth title in 1900 after six defeats against Charlotte Dod. Suzanne Lenglen set Charlotte Dod's record of three consecutive wins at the Wimbledon Championships in 1921.

In addition to her participation in tennis tournaments for women, Charlotte Dod occasionally played and won against men, although most of them were burdened with a handicap. One of her most spectacular victories in this area is her victory with Herbert Baddeley in tennis doubles over Ernest Renshaw and George Hillyard .

Play style

Charlotte Dod's style of play was considered unorthodox at the time, especially because she was one of the first to frequently perform online . In addition, she held her tennis racket unusual for the time. Volley was controversial in the early days of tennis and was even considered improper by women for a long time. She said about that

"In mixed doubles, my opinion is that the pair is much stronger when the lady can go up and volley, taking her fair share of the work [...] Ladies doubles would be far more interesting if fought like the gentlemen's, on the service line [...] Two good volleyers will beat two good back players or a volleyer and a back player. "

Like most of her contemporaries, however, she still opened from below. She didn't think the overhead serve would prevail among women:

"It is doubtful whether ladies gain anything by serving overhand. In the majority of cases they expend a good deal of strength without making the service more difficult than the ordinary underhand; therefore, unless exceptionally good and performed without undue exertion, I do think ladies' overhand service is a great waste of strength. "

Dod's greatest strength, however, was her forehand, which was described as both very powerful and placed.

Winter sports and mountaineering

St. Moritz around 1900

Even if tennis remained Charlotte Dods' favorite sport, she increasingly turned to other sports in the 1890s. In the winter of 1895 she accompanied her brother Tony on a trip to the winter sports resort of St. Moritz , which was very popular among English travelers at the time. There she passed the then famous St. Moritz test in figure skating for women. Charlotte Dod also took part in the Cresta Run , a bobsleigh race in St. Moritz, and started mountaineering with her brother. In February 1896 she climbed two 4000m peaks for the first time.

literature

• Jeffrey Pearson: Lottie Dod - Champion of Champions - Story of an Athlete . Countyvise Limited, Wirral 1988, ISBN 0-907768-26-1 .
• L. Tingay: One Hundred Years of Wimbledon. Guinness World Records Ltd, London 1977, ISBN 978-0900424717 , p. 40

Web links

Commons : Lottie Dod  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Charlotte Dod in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Remarks

1. ↑ At this point it was quite common in tournaments for last year's winner to automatically be a participant in the final round. The winner of the preliminary round was his opponent
2. ↑ Tournaments in which players with a handicap were burdened were typical at this time and were awarded in almost all sports towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Today you can only find this in the Gulf
3. ↑ "In my opinion, a couple is much stronger in mixed if the woman can go to the front [to the network] and do her fair share of the work [...] ladies doubles would be far more interesting if, how for men, there would be fought on the service line [...] Two good volleyball players beat two good baseline players or one volleyball and one baseline player. " (Tingay)
4. ↑ "It is doubtful that women can gain anything from an overhead serve. In the majority of cases, they use a lot of force without making the serve heavier than the ordinary one from below; so I believe that the overhead serve, if not exceptional Done well and without undue exertion, a great waste of strength in women. " (Tingay)
5. ↑ Tingay (1977), p. 40