Vic Seixas, 1923-2024

There was a time when nothing mattered more to tennis players than the Davis Cup. Few demonstrated his commitment to the competition with more loyalty than Vic Seixas, who died on July 5 at the age of 100.

For seven straight years, from 1951-’57, Seixas represented the United States in the Davis Cup final, in what was then called the “Challenge Round.” All seven were played versus the mighty Australians. But only once did Seixas and his fellow Americans raise the Davis Cup in triumph. That win came in 1954, in Sydney, in front of more than 25,000 Aussie fans on the iconic lawns of White City Tennis Club. A year earlier, at Kooyong in Melbourne, Seixas had lost the fifth and decisive rubber to Ken Rosewall, the brilliant Australian later nicknamed “The Doomsday Stroking Machine.”

But 1954 was different. The Challenge Round began with Trabert avenging his loss to Hoad. Despite having previously lost eight straight matches to Rosewall, Seixas then played one of the finest matches of his career, in four sets taking down the nimble Aussie for the only time in his career. Per usual, Seixas earned the win with nimble movement, crisp volleys and, in this case, a game plan that relied on attacking Rosewall’s weaker forehand.

With the U.S. leading 2-0, Seixas and Trabert had the chance to bring home the precious cup with a doubles win over Hoad and Rosewall. It wasn’t easy, but over the course of four tight sets, the Americans emerged victorious and brought the Davis Cup home for the first time since 1949.

“It was a great moment,” wrote Seixas in his book, Prime Time Tennis, “one of those once-in-a-lifetime thrills and the culmination of many months of physical and mental preparation.”

Seixas’ effort in Sydney was the pinnacle of a Davis Cup career that saw him compile a 38-17 record. Beyond the Cup, his resume included singles wins at Wimbledon (1953) and the U.S. Championships (1954), as well as an additional 13 Grand Slam doubles titles in men’s (five) and mixed (eight). Seixas was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971. Long the oldest living inductee, Seixas often joked, “I’d prefer to be the youngest.”

Elias Victor Seixas, Jr. was born on August 30, 1923 in Philadelphia. His father worked in the plumbing supply business. An only child, Seixas accompanied his father to a local club and by age five was playing tennis.

At Penn Charter, a local prep school, Seixas lettered in tennis, baseball, track, squash and basketball.

“I have always considered myself a frustrated baseball player,” he once said. “I stuck to tennis only because I was better at it.”

One of the finest juniors in the country all through the ‘30s, Seixas entered the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1941. Such was the world of tennis then that a year later, Seixas was ranked No. 9 in the U.S. men’s division. Over the course of the next quarter-century, from 1942-’66, Seixas would be ranked in the U.S. Top Ten 13 times—in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s.

“He was fit, he was fast, and he was great at the net,” said Trabert.

As World War II broke out, Seixas’ tennis dreams were temporarily derailed. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 and was called into the Air Force in 1943. Seixas spent the next three years as a flight instructor and also served time in New Guinea and Tokyo. Returning to college in the fall of 1946, Seixas continued to mix tennis, basketball and squash and earned a B.S. in commerce from the University of North Carolina in 1949.

In those days, players were typically only given the chance to play major tournaments by their national associations. In 1950, the USLTA (now the USTA) sent Seixas, Art Larsen, Shirley Fry and Doris Hart on a tour that started in South Africa, headed north to Europe and finished at Wimbledon. In his debut appearances, Seixas reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and the semis at Wimbledon.

“You could travel the world and live like a king,” said Seixas. This being the pre-Open era, the only way players earned money was through various and rather random forms of compensation considered “expenses,” as well as occasional under-the-table payments that rarely if ever reached the four-figure mark.

During the years he was one of the Top Ten players in the world, Seixas supplemented his income by working in his father’s store. Once, when a customer noted he hadn’t seen Seixas for a while, Seixas replied that he’d been playing tennis for three months in Australia. Said the customer, you didn’t have to go that far, there are courts right down the street.

During the years he was one of the Top Ten players in the world, Seixas supplemented his income by working in his father’s store.

While Davis Cup was Seixas’ quintessential American moment, his royal ascent came in 1953. Seeded second at Wimbledon, Seixas made his way to the finals with a pair of five-set wins in the quarters and semis over a pair of skilled Australians. First, Lew Hoad, then an 18-year-old prodigy who could hit every shot in the book (imagine a righty blend of Laver and Roger Federer). Serving at six-all in the fifth set (no tiebreakers then), Seixas went down love-40, only to extricate himself from that game and end up winning the match, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 9-7.

In the semis, Seixas played the adroit lefthander, Mervyn Rose. Down two sets to one, Seixas’ fitness came in handy as he took the match 6-4, 10-12, 9-11, 6-4, 6-3. The final was more prosaic, Seixas beating unseeded Dane Kurt Nielsen, 9-7, 6-3, 6-4. His reward for winning the most important title in tennis: a 25-pound gift certificate at a shop in Piccadilly Circus. Seixas purchased a sweater.

A year later came Seixas’ singles triumph at the U.S. Nationals (now known as the US Open), a title he won at age 31. Besides the singles, Seixas that year also won the men’s doubles with Trabert and the mixed with Doris Hart. All told, he would play the event a record 28 times between 1940 and ’69. As late as 1966, at the age of 42, Seixas beat a rising 20-year-old future Hall of Famer, Stan Smith. Said Smith in a 2019 New York Magazine article, “His game was a little wristy, with this nice slice backhand, but the thing I remember the most is how well he moved.”

A few weeks prior to that win over Smith, at the Pennsylvania Grass Championships, Seixas had won a nearly four-hour long epic versus 22-year-old Bill Bowrey by the now-unrepeatable score of 32-34, 6-4, 10-8.

Outside the lines, Seixas served the game in a variety of ways. He was the captain of the U.S. Davis Cup three times, and was appointed tournament referee at the US Open in 1971. He also held the job as tennis director of the prestigious Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, as well as a teaching position at the Hilton Hotel in New Orleans.

In 1989, Seixas relocated to Northern California, where over the last years of his life he was based just outside of San Francisco at The Club at Harbor Point, located in Mill Valley (Marin County).

by Joel Drucker, historian-at-large, International Tennis Hall of Fame