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Pancho Segura, Ecuadorean tennis star – obituary
Pancho Segura, who has died aged 96, overcame a poverty-stricken childhood in Ecuador to become one of the finest tennis players of the 1940s and 1950s; his double-fisted forehand was considered by Lew Hoad to be the most dangerous shot he ever faced.
Segura won the US Clay Court Championship in 1944 and the US Indoor title two years later. He reached the finals in four Grand Slam doubles tournaments before turning professional, when he became the only player to have won the US Pro title on three different surfaces (clay, grass and indoor), which he did consecutively from 1950 to 1952.
Playing before the open era, he never won Wimbledon, though he played there twice before he went professional, in 1946 and 1947, when he was defeated by Tom Brown of the US in round four and Jaroslav Drobny of Czechoslovakia in round one respectively, though he did win the Queen’s Club title in 1946.
In later life he became a tennis coaching guru, helping to turn Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi into champions.
Francisco Olegario Segura was born prematurely on June 20 1921. According to one account he was born on a bus travelling from the Ecuadorean city of Quevedo to the port city of Guayaquil; according to another, he was born on a barge as his mother tried to get to the hospital in Guayaquil, the river being the only “freeway” available.
A sickly child, he suffered from malaria and from rickets, which left him with bow legs and pigeon toes, yet he was surprisingly fast on his feet.
Pancho’s father was a caretaker for an Ecuadorean businessman who got the seven-year-old Pancho a job at a Guayaquil tennis club. “I made some money putting in the lines and the nets and cleaning up the courts,” he recalled, “and I got to play two or three hours a day.” His physical frailty forced him to use two hands to hit the ball.
Segura learned the game so well that he became Ecuadorean champion and ultimately South American champion, catching the eye of Ecuadorean President Galo Plaza, who arranged a scholarship for the young man at the University of Miami, where he was coached by Gardnar Mulloy. While there he won the national collegiate singles championships three years in a row, and left university without taking a degree to concentrate on his tennis career.
In 1947 he became one of the first players to join the promoter Jack Harris’s professional tour which began on December 26 1947 at Madison Square Garden, New York, when more than 15,000 fans turned out to see Bobby Riggs take on Jack Kramer, Bobby Riggs winning in four close-fought sets. Segura and the Australian Dinny Pails were the warm-up act, an epic test of endurance from which Pails emerged the victor, but which had to be suspended to make way for the main event.
This set the pattern for the international Pro tours that Segura would participate in for 15 years, playing for a percentage of the gate receipts. Kramer called Segura and Pails the “animal act”. They would play for six months in the United States then tour worldwide.
“I played on islands that were specks in the Indian Ocean,” Segura recalled. “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 … It was tough, playing four or five nights a week, sleeping in the station wagon sometimes.”
Pancho Gonzalez became one of the main stars, but Segura or “Segoo”, as he was nicknamed, was one of the most memorable characters. At one point, he had lost more money playing cards than he had earned on tour, thanks to Riggs, who had taught him to play poker, but not well: “Bobby stole my money. He was playing with wild cards, and I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Segura was both a favourite and a butt of derision, as Alex Olmedo recalled: “Everybody looked at him, walking in like a frog. ‘Booo!!!’ But he was the underdog, and soon everyone would be going for him. The crowd always loved him.”
Segura won a total of six US Pro singles and doubles championships, meeting Gonzales in the singles final six times, winning twice. After playing his last US Pro tournament in 1962, Segura became a coach, working as tennis director at clubs in California. Among others he took on a 16-year-old Jimmy Connors (whose mother, the former Gloria Thompson, had been Segura’s mixed doubles partner).
Segura explained his technique: “The idea is to win the key points. The guy with the best fundamentals doesn’t necessarily win tennis matches. The guy with the best nerve, who knows how to play key points and the graphics of the court, that is the player who will win most often.”
He began working with Andre Agassi in 1993, shortly after the tennis star had captivated Wimbledon with the drastic depilatory measures he had taken on everything but his scalp, and the effect soon showed. “My body hair,” Agassi announced, “is now secondary to my tennis.”
Segura became an American citizen in 1991 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1984.
His first marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by his second wife, Beverley, by their daughter, and by a son from his first marriage.
Pancho Segura, born June 20 1921, died November 18 2017