Jenny Sandison (born 1910) was an Anglo-Indian

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player. She was born at

Kharagpur Kharagpur () is a planned urban agglomeration and a major industrial city in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Kharagpur subdivision. It is the largest, most populated, multicultural and cosmopol ...

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

(now

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

, India).

Career

She played her first tournament in January 1927 at the Bengal Championships where she reached the final before losing to Mrs. E.S. Graham. She was the first to hold the top position in women single tennis for a straight six years between 1930 and 1935. She once beat

Betty Nuthall Betty May Nuthall Shoemaker (née Nuthall; 23 May 1911 – 8 November 1983) was an English tennis player. Known for her powerful forehand, according to Wallis Myers of ''The Daily Telegraph'' and the ''Daily Mail'', Nuthall was ranked in the wor ...

Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the historic county of Surrey and since 1965 it has ...

in 1930 at the

Surrey Championships The Surrey Championships also known as the Surrey Grass Court Championships and the Surrey County Championships is a defunct tennis tournament played in Surbiton, Surrey, England on outdoor grass courts. It ran for 73 editions from 1890 to 1981 a ...

tournament. Archived fro
original
via

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on 5 December 2012 Sandison was the first player of Indian origin to play at Wimbledon in 1929 but lost in the first round. In the years 1929 and 1930 she got twice the opportunity to compete at Wimbledon. She supported herself as a typist while being in England from 1929 to 1930. On 4 October 1930 Jenny departed by sea voyage to

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

boarding the Mulbera ship. The rest of her career she never travelled outside the Indian subcontinent. Sandison, in her entire career won more than 20 singles titles ranging from the 1927

All India Championships All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All al ...

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

to 1938 at

. Sandison also holds the distinction of winning the

a record seven times. She also won the

Bengal Championships The Bengal Championships was a combined men's and women's grass court tournament founded in 1887 as the Bengal Lawn Tennis Championships then the second oldest tournament in India. The tournament was played at the Calcutta Cricket Club grounds, Cal ...

held at the

South Club South Club (Hangul: 사우스클럽) is a South Korean band formed in 2017 by singer Nam Tae-hyun. The band's current line-up consists of four members: leader, vocalist, guitarist, composer and producer Nam Tae-hyun, bassist Jung Hoe-Min, drummer ...

six times (1928–1931, 1934, 1937) The 1930

Beckenham Beckenham () is a town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley, in Greater London. Until 1965 it was part of the historic county of Kent. It is located south-east of Charing Cross, situated north of Elmers End and E ...

(

Kent Championships The Kent Championships also known as the Kent All-Comers' Championships was a tennis tournament held in Foxgrove Road, Beckenham, Kent, England between 1886 and 1996 and was held in the first half of June. From 1887 until 1910 the tournament was ...

) was her most noteworthy title.

Family

She was an

Anglo Indian Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...

and came from a mixed family. Her father worked in the railways. She married Terence Boland.

References

1910 births Year of death missing People from Kharagpur Anglo-Indian people Indian female tennis players Sportswomen from West Bengal Racket sportspeople from West Bengal {{India-tennis-bio-stub