Delano Osborne

Major Accomplishments

First woman to win the Canadian international championship in 1892.

Captured the title again in 1893 and 1894.

Biography

“Perhaps the first tournament for women was held in Montreal in 1881, and a year later players from England and Canada contested a doubles match at the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club, which inaugurated a women’s Dominion championship in 1883, although there were rarely enough contestants until 1892, when the championship became firmly established. Miss Delano-Osborne from Sutton, Ontario, with an “indomitable perseverance and determination,” was the undisputed Canadian champion from 1892 until 1894. In 1895 she was defeated in the final by Mrs. Sydney Smith of Ottawa whom she had beaten in 1892 and 1893. The 1892 final was regarded by the press as the finest ever played by women in Canada and from that point on the women’s game never looked back. The 1892 women’s final was also the best of five sets. That same year both players went to Buffalo to compete in a tournament, to be among the first Canadian women travelling to another country to compete in organized sport,” (Margaret Ann Hall, The girl and the game: a history of women’s sport in Canada).