The First Champions

In July 2027, Wimbledon will celebrate 150 years of a sporting championship that is now rivalled in popularity only by the Olympics and the World Cup. The very first Wimbledon champions, however, Spencer Gore, Frank Hadow, John Hartley, the Renshaw twins, Maud Watson, Blanche Bingley, and Lottie Dod, who were as famous as Federer in their day, have now faded into obscurity. With the exception of Dod, none have had even one proper biography published about them, and some have never been written about seriously at all. Until now. This is a book about those early Wimbledon stars. It tells their overlapping stories, several for the first time, as they pushed the boundaries of tennis and sport to help establish Wimbledon as one of the most popular British sporting events and lawn tennis as one of Britain's most important inventions.