Tennis great who coached Jimmy Connors

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Pancho Segura, who rose from poverty to win six U.S. Pro singles and doubles championships and was one of the world’s greatest tennis players in the 1950s, has died. He was 96.

Segura died Saturday from complications of Parkinson’s disease at his home at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California, his son, Spencer Segura of Connecticut, said Sunday.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Segura went from amateur to barnstorming pro and then honored coach, whose students included Jimmy Connors.

“Sad day — lost my friend-coach — and mentor,” Connors posted on Twitter Sunday.

Francisco Olegario Segura was born into poverty in Ecuador. Childhood rickets bowed his legs. Too weak for soccer, he took to tennis while working as a ball boy at a club in Guayaquil.

“I taught myself how to play,” Segura told ESPN in 2009. “And I worked at it, day after day, for hours, hitting on the backboard, begging people to play a little bit with me.”

He developed into a South American champion player. Word reached University of Miami head coach Gardnar Mulloy, who recruited him for the school on a scholarship. Segura went on to win the NCAA singles championship three years in a row, from 1943 to 1945.

From there he moved to the amateur circuit. He repeatedly made it to U.S. National finals and reached the third round at Wimbledon in the 1940s. He also won the U.S. Clay Court Championship in 1944 and the U.S. Indoor title in 1946.

Although he stood only 5 feet, 6 inches, Segura held his own against larger and more powerful opponents. He had a unique and devastating two-handed forehand.

“I played with the speed of a bullet,” Segura told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1987. “Great eyes, great hands, great under pressure. I was a fighter, a killer. I hated to lose to anyone. My concentration was so intense. I could do anything with the ball.”

He also gained the reputation as a master strategist.

“You are trying to draw a short ball so you can attack,” Segura told ESPN. “You need to understand things like your opponent’s grips, his movement, which shots he can hit and which shots he can’t.”

To make a living, Segura turned pro in 1947. He traveled around the world on barnstorming tours with the likes of Bobby Riggs and Pancho Gonzalez.

He won the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships singles title from 1950 to 1952 and the U.S. Pro doubles title in 1948, 1955 and 1958. He played his last U.S. Pro in 1962 when he was 44 and his last U.S. Open singles match in 1970, falling in the second round.

In 1962, he launched a career as a pro and coach at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, moving to the San Diego club in 1970. He became a U.S. citizen in 1991.

He continued to watch and analyze tennis matches well into his 90s, his son said.

Coming from poverty, Segura discounted the popular view of tennis as a sport of the wealthy.

It “doesn’t take more than a racket and a heart to play this game,” he told ESPN. “It’s a great test of democracy in action.”

Segura