Lottie Dod

Charlotte Lottie Dod was an English sportswoman best known as a tennis player. She won the Wimbledon Ladies Singles Championship five times, the first one when she was only fifteen in the summer of 1887. She remains the youngest ladies singles champion, though Martina Hingis was three days younger when she won the womens doubles title in 1996.

Dod was born onSeptember 1871 in Bebington, Merseyside, the youngest of four children to Joseph and Margaret Dod. Joseph, 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 had a sister, Annie, and another brother, Tony, all of whom also 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. The Dod children received a private education by tutors and governesses. In her childhood Lottie played the piano, banjo and she was member of a local choir. When Dod was nine years old, two tennis courts were built near the familys 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

Source: Wikipedia