Leela Row

Leela Row Dayal (19 December 1911 – 19 May 1964) was a female tennis player and author from India. She was the first female Indian tennis player to win a match at the Wimbledon Championships. She wrote several books on Indian classical dance in both English and Sanskrit.

Career Tennis

At the 1934 Wimbledon Championships she became the first Indian female player to win a match, defeating Gladys Southwell in the first round of the singles event. In the second round she was defeated by Ida Adamoff in three sets. The next year, 1935, she returned but lost in the first round in straight sets to Evelyn Dearman. In 1935 during a tour of England she won the Hampshire Lawn Tennis Championships at Bournemouth against Joan Ingram, and the Hastings and St. Leonard's Open against Peggy Brazier.. In 1937 she won the Northern India Championships against Meher Dubash in Lahore.

The straight backhand drive was her favorite shot. These books were bilingual, written in English and Sanskrit. She also helped to translate many poems made by her mother and converted them into Sankskrit plays. and Pandita Kshama Row, a Sanskrit poet. Her mother was also an early player of tennis in India, winning the singles title at the Bombay Presidency Hard Court Championships in 1927. She later settled in Ranikhet, in Uttarakhand, India. Her house there was inherited by her nephew, the Oxford University Press editor and publisher Ravi Dayal.