World Tennis Day on 7th March aims to foster global interest in the game.
Tennis, as we know it today, can be traced back to a medieval game, jeu de paume, played in France. In the 16th century, there were no less than a thousand tennis courts in Paris only, showing how popular the sport was back then, among royalty and commoners alike.I have written about tennis and children's books before on Play Tennis Day which is on 23rd February. For books see here.
As this is the day before International Women's Day I thought I might do a small display on Monday of the books that feature successful women tennis players.
The library has books about Evonne Goolagong, Billie Jean King, the Williams sisters Venus and Serena, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Ash Barty, but start with Lottie Dod. Charlotte Dod (24 September 1871 – 27 June 1960) was an English multi-sport athlete, best known as a tennis player. She won the Wimbledon Ladies' Singles five times, the first one when she was only 15 in the summer of 1887. She remains the youngest ladies' singles champion.
Blurb: “Girls can’t play tennis as well as boys? What a lot of NONSENSE!” Lottie Dod is DETERMINED to show that girls can be just as good as sports as boys. She runs and jumps and leaps after the ball – playing tennis makes Lottie feel WONDERFUL. After beating her brothers, she eventually goes on to reach the finals of the most important tennis competition of them all – WIMBLEDON! Can she continue her winning streak to become the world’s first female sports SUPERSTAR? NEVER underestimate what girls can do!
