Vic Seixas (1949) - Patterson Medal Winners - University of North Carolina Athletics

Vic Seixas

Induction:
1949
Class:
1949

1949— Vic Seixas: Men's Tennis (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Vic Seixas (pronounced SAY-shuss) is one of the outstanding players in American tennis history. Seixas went 63-3 in singles matches at Carolina from 1947-49 under head coach John Kenfield. He finished second in the 1948 NCAA Championship, won the Southern Conference singles title in 1948, was runner-up in 1947 and 1949 and won doubles in 1949.

By 1952, he earned the No. 1 singles ranking among American players and went on to win singles titles at Wimbledon in 1953 and the U.S. Open in 1954. 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.

In his lengthy career, during which he remained an amateur, he won 15 majors: two singles championships, five doubles championships and eight mixed doubles championships. His five doubles titles in majors included the 1952 and 1954 U.S. Nationals, 1954 and 1955 French and 1955 Australian. He won four consecutive Wimbledon mixed doubles titles from 1953-56.

Seixas was a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II before enrolling at UNC.