Tar Heel Tennis Legend Vic Seixas Dies At Age 100 – University of North Carolina Athletics

The International Tennis Hall of Fame announced Seixas’ death on Saturday based on confirmation from his daughter, Tori. It said the American died Friday but did not provide a cause of death.

Seixas was named an All-America at UNC in 1948. While at Carolina, Seixas, who played for coach John Kenfield from 1947-49, won the Southern Conference singles title in 1948 and finished as the runner-up in 1947 and 1949. He teamed with Clark Taylor to capture the league doubles crown in 1949. In 1948, he entered the NCAA Tournament as the top seed and won five matches in the tournament before dropping the championship match to the No. 1 ranked player in the U.S.

That same year, Seixas was the seventh-ranked men’s singles player in the U.S. amateur ranks. By 1952, he had attained the No. 1 singles ranking among American players. The 55 Davis Cup singles matches he played in were the most of any American player in history when he retired from active play and his 75 U.S. Open singles victories were a record that stood until broken by Jimmy Connors in 1985.

Seixas had been the Hall of Fame’s oldest member and was inducted in 1971 after a career that included the 1953 Wimbledon singles title. He also won the U.S. Championships — now the U.S. Open — in 1954.

Seixas stood out for his longevity in the sport and played in the U.S. Championships a record 28 times between 1940 and 1969, the last time when he was 45. He was also a mainstay in the Davis Cup, where he helped the U.S. reach seven straight finals between 1951-57. The Americans faced Australia in all of those finals and only won one, in 1954, when Seixas won one singles match and the doubles together with Tony Trabert.

He also won five Grand Slam titles in doubles and eight in mixed doubles.

After his playing career, he served as the tournament referee during the 1971 U.S. Open and was a three-time Davis Cup captain.

Born in Philadelphia on Aug. 30, 1923, he had lived north of San Francisco since 1989.