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Pancho Segura, a top-quality tennis player for
many years, was born Francisco Olegario Segura in
Guayaquil, Ecuador, on June 20, 1921, but moved to
the United States in the late 1930s and is
considered to be an American tennis player. He was
a small man, no more than 5'6" (1.68 m), with
badly bowed legs from the rickets that he had
suffered as a child, but he made up it for with
extremely fast footwork and a devastating
two-handed forehand that his frequent adversary
and the future tennis impresario Jack Kramer once
called "The greatest single shot ever produced in
tennis".

By the time he was 17 Segura had won a number of
titles in Latin America and was offered a tennis
scholarship at the University of Miami. He won the
Intercollegiates for three straight years, in
1943, 1944, and 1945, and was also the number
3-ranked American player during those years.  He
won the U.S. Indoors in 1946 and U.S. Clay Courts
in 1944 but was never able to win the national
championship at Forest Hills, although he reached
the semi-finals a number of times.

Long before Open era|Open Tennis, Segura turned
professional in 1947 and was an immediate
crowd-pleaser with his winning smile, infectiously
humorous manner, and unorthodox but deadly game. 
Although he was overshadowed as a player by Kramer
and Pancho Gonzales in his professional career, he
won many matches against the greatest players in
the world and was particularly brilliant in the
annual United States Pro Championship.  He won the
title three years in a row from 1950 through 1952,
beating Gonzales twice.  He also lost in the
finals four times, losing to Gonzales three times
and once to Butch Buchholz in 1962 when he was 41
years old. 

After retiring from the Tour, he became a teaching
professional for many years in Southern California
and is widely credited with helping form the young
Jimmy Connors.

He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall
of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1985.


*List of male tennis players