Dorothy Round Refuses To Go On A Diet

Southland Times, Issue 23825, 24 May 1939, Page 11

Dorothy Round Refuses To Go On A Diet

Although famous Dorothy Round, now in her thirtieth year, made her tennis come-back the other day weighing 12 stone, which is three stone heavier than when she first won the Wimbledon women’s singles championship in 1934, she refuses to diet. And this in spite of the fact that she intends to compete at Wimbledon in a month or two’s time. Her husband who is a doctor, tried to persuade her to follow a slimming diet, but she could not bring herself to do it. Often she has said that fresh air and good food are more important than strenuous physical jerks to keep .fit. She still believes it. Even her strictest training has only meant eating what she liked, playing golf or tennis at least once a week, and getting out into the open air for an occasional brisk walk. “The only reason I have put weight on so rapidly, lately,” she said, “is be-1

cause I am so utterly and blissfully happy, and I love nothing so much as sitting lazily about playing with my little son.”

Dorothy Round, twice Wimbledon champion, rated England’s No. 1 player in 1937, has been described as the greatest woman tennis player of her day—bar Helen Wills Moody. When she married Dr Douglas Leigh Little in September, 1937, at Worcestershire, she said she was not giving up championship tennis. Her husband, a fine golfer, but a self-confessed tennis “rabbit,” applauded her decision. But the arrival of her son, lan Douglas, in July last year meant she had to relinquish her title without defending it.