Vic Seixas, the 1953 Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Singles Champion, passed away on Friday 5 July at the age of 100.
Born on 30 August 1923 in Philadelphia, Seixas’s early tennis career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served with the US Army Air Corps. His first appearance at The Championships didn’t come until 1950, when he lost to the eventual champion Budge Patty in the semi-finals.
Seixas’s big year came in 1953. He beat Lew Hoad in the quarter-finals and then another Australian, Mervyn Rose, in five sets to reach the final. There he defeated the unseeded Dane, Kurt Nielsen, in straight sets to win his first Grand Slam title. His win meant he joined a select group containing Laurie Doherty, Anthony Wilding, Don Budge, and subsequently Carlos Alcaraz, as Coronation Year Wimbledon Champions.
In 1954, Seixas added a second Grand Slam title, beating Rex Hartwig to win the US Championship. Later that year he was part of the USA team that won the Davis Cup by defeating Australia in the Challenge Round. It was a rare victory against an Australian team that dominated the competition in the 1950s.
As well as his two singles titles, Seixas also won five Grand Slam men’s doubles titles (one with Australian Mervyn Rose and four with Seixas’s compatriot, Tony Trabert) and eight mixed doubles titles. His mixed doubles record at Wimbledon, in particular, was second to none. Between 1953 and 1956 he won four consecutive titles, the first three with Doris Hart and the fourth with Shirley Fry. Only two other men, Owen Davidson and Ken Fletcher, have won the title four times. In total, Seixas won 25 consecutive mixed doubles matches at The Championships, also a men’s record.
Unlike many of the top players of his era, Seixas declined to turn professional, preferring to keep competing on the amateur circuit.
Seixas continued to compete in Grand Slam tournaments into his 40s, achieving a notable victory over a 19-year-old Stan Smith at the 1966 US Championships, before losing to Mark Cox in the second round. He later turned his knowledge of playing excellent tennis in middle age into a book, Prime Time Tennis: Tennis for Players over 40, published in 1983.
Seixas’s last appearance at The Championships came in the gentlemen’s doubles in 1973. His partner was Frank Sedgman, the man he had succeeded as singles champion 20 years earlier. They lost to the British pairing of Mark Farrell and John Lloyd.
Seixas returned to Wimbledon on several occasions, taking part in the celebrations to mark the Centenary Championships in 1977 and the Millennium Championships in 2000. He was also a Chairman’s Guest in 1996 and 2013, to mark the 60th anniversary of his 1953 title.
Away from tennis, Seixas initially worked as a stockbroker with Goldman Sachs before starting a career running tennis clubs, first in West Virginia and then in New Orleans.
In 1989, Seixas moved to California to set up the tennis programme at the Harbor Point Racquet and Beach Club in Mill Valley, near San Francisco. After retiring, he continued to live at the club, with his daughter Victoria living nearby.
