Retirement
In 1962, on the recommendation of good friend, Mike Franks, Segura became the teaching professional at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. replacing Carl Earn. Most of Pancho's students were movie stars such as Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Julie Andrews, Richard Conte, Shelley Winters, Charlton Heston, Barbra Streisand, Dina Merrill, Kirk Douglas, Robert Evans, Lauren Bacall, Gene Hackman, Carl Reiner, Barbara Marx, George C. Scott, Janet Leigh, and Ava Gardner. Jeanne Martin (Dean's wife) was a favorite student of his. Pancho also found time to coach and teach Jimmy Connors and Stan Smith, two great tennis champions, as well as his son, Spencer, who played at UCLA. In 1971, he left Beverly Hills to become the teaching professional at the La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California, where he is now retired. He is widely credited with coaching, mentoring, and structuring the playing game of Jimmy Connors, starting at age 16, in 1968, when his mother, Gloria, brought him to Pancho in California. Dr. Abraham Verghese describes taking a tennis lesson from Segura during this period in The Tennis Partner.
Before the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973, Segura openly supported Riggs. When King won the match, Segura declared disgustedly that Riggs was only the third-best senior player, behind himself and Gardnar Mulloy. He challenged King to another match. King refused.
Segura retired from playing tennis after the 1970 US Open at Forest Hills. However, he played his last doubles match as late as the 1975 US Open, at the age of 54.
Segura was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1984.
Read more about this topic: Pancho Segura
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