Episode 87 of the Tennis Abstract Podcast features Sasha Abramsky, author of the book Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar.
Our wide-ranging chat covers many aspects of the life and times of this 19th century superstar, from her global legions of fans, to her “Battle of the Sexes”-style challenges 80 years before King-Riggs, to her unprecedented and varied string of sporting successes. We also touch on the relative dearth of tennis historiography, the chronological gap between Dod and the next generation of female athletic superstars, and whether there is a natural intersection between progressive politics and the compelling stories of tennis history.
This was a great conversation about a part of tennis history we don’t hear nearly enough about, so I hope you’ll check it out. And for the full account of Lottie Dod, be sure to pick up your copy of Sasha’s book.
Fans of the TA podcast will also want to check out Dangerous Exponents, the new Covid-19 podcast that Carl Bialik and I are doing. We released episode 3 yesterday.
(Note: this week’s episode is about 60 minutes long; in some browsers the audio player may display a different length. Sorry about that!)
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