adminJOHANNESBURG. — South African tennis legend Abe Segal has passed away at the age of 85, Tennis SA announced.
Segal was not only one of the greatest tennis players to emerge from South Africa but was also undoubtedly one of the greatest personalities in the sport worldwide.
Segal had been suffering from cancer and passed away in Cape Town on Monday night.
Together with Gordon Forbes, they formed one the world’s best doubles teams, and the two remained great friends off the court. Forbes wrote two books – A Handful Of Summers and Too Soon To Panic – in which Segal featured prominently. In fact, the title of the second book comes from a quote from Segal during a Davis Cup tie against Germany in Berlin in 1962.
Actor and writer Peter Ustinov wrote the forward to A Handful Of Summers and when Segal produced his book in 2008, called Hey Big Boy, not to be outdone Segal got Sean Connery to pen the forward in his book.
On the international stage Segal twice made the finals of the French Open, in 1958 with Australian Roy Howe where they lost in four sets to Ashley Cooper and Neale Fraser and again in 1963 with Forbes where they lost to Roy Emerson and Manuel Santana. — AFP.
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