76 Minutes With … Vic Seixas, The Nonagenarian

A tour through tennis history with the world’s oldest living Grand Slam champ.

- Reeves Wiedeman

In 1953, Vic Seixas had a year that most tennis players not named Roger, Serena, Novak, or Rafael could only dream of. He started the season by making the semifinals at the Australian Championships, then took second at Roland Garros, won Wimbledon, and was the runner-up at the U.S. National Championships in Queens. This was before tennis’s “Open Era,” when the sport got rid of the distinction between professionals and amateurs, like Seixas, who could play the most prestigious events but didn’t make any money doing so. That’s why the tournament names look a little funny— the U.S. National Championships became the U.S. Open in 1968—and why Seixas’s dream year didn’t make him rich. Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep each received $2.9 million for winning Wimbledon this year. When Seixas won, he got £25 to spend at a shop in Piccadilly Circus. He bought a sweater.

“You could travel the world and live like a king,” Seixas says from his Bay Area apartment. “And you didn’t make any money.” Seixas, who is now 95, looks and sounds 15 years younger, deploying jokes he’s been honing for decades: He is the oldest living Grand Slam champ and the oldest living member of the Tennis Hall of Fame, but neither designation appeals to him. “I’d rather be the youngest,” he says.