Tennis great Segura dies
Pancho Segura, who rose from poverty to win six U.S. Pro singles and doubles championships and was one of the world’s top amateur players in the 1940s and professionals in the 1950s, died at his home in Carlsbad, his son, Spencer Segura, told the Associated Press on Sunday. He was 96.
Segura went from amateur to barnstorming pro as a player, then became a coach, including of eighttime major singles champion Jimmy Connors.
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.”
He developed into a South American champion player. Word reached University of Miami head coach Gardnar Mulloy, who recruited him on a scholarship. Segura went on to win the NCAA singles championship from 1943 to 1945.
From there he moved to the amateur circuit and was a singles semifinalist four times at the U.S. Championships, the precursor to the U.S. Open. He also won the U.S. Clay Court Championship in 1944 and the U.S. Indoor title in 1946.
He stood only 5 feet 6 inches, but Segura held his own against larger and more powerful opponents.
“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.”
To make a living, Segura turned professional in 1947, about two decades before pro players were admitted to Grand Slam tournaments. He traveled around the world on barnstorming tours with the likes of Bobby Riggs and Pancho Gonzalez.
“I played on islands that were specks in the Indian Ocean,” he told The Times in 1991. “I played for the sheikh of Kuwait, and I played at midnight in Madrid for $1,000. Errol Flynn used to send a car to pick me up.”
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. 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.
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.”
“Me and you, man, in the arena. Just me and you, baby,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how much you have, or who your dad is, or if you went to Harvard, or Yale, or whatever. Just me and you.”
Grigor Dimitrov claimed the title at the seasonending ATP Finals in London, beating David Goffin 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in the final to become the first player to win the elite tournament on debut since 1998.