Seymour Greenberg

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Seymour Greenberg (born August 10, 1920, in Chicago, Illinois; died March 3, 2006 in Park Ridge, Illinois) was an outstanding amateur American tennis player in the 1940s and 1950s. He was ranked in the U.S. top ten in singles in 1943 and 1944.

He won the National Clay Court Championship in 1942 and 1943, and was a singles quarterfinalist at the U.S. National Championships in 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945.

In 1943 at the historic tournament in Cincinnati, Greenberg reached the singles and doubles finals, only to lose the singles final to future International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Bill Talbert, and lose the doubles final to Talbert and partner Alvin Bunis. (Greenberg had partnered with Joe Scherr to reach the final.)

Greenburg was captain of the tennis team at Northwestern University and he became that school's first Big Ten Conference singles champion when he won the title in 1940. He repeated in 1941 and won Big Ten doubles championships in 1940 (with Jerry Clifford), 1941 (with Gene Richards) and 1942 (also with Richards). He led the Northwestern Wildcats to the Big Ten team championships in 1940 and 1942.

He won the Illinois State Championships nine times, and Illinois State high school singles titles in 1936 and 1937 while at Lane High School in Chicago.

Greenberg has been enshrined in the United States Tennis Association/Midwest Hall of Fame (in 1990), the Northwestern University Athletic Hall of Fame (2000), the Chicago Tennis Hall of Fame (2004), and the Chicago Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (1982).

His tennis career was interrupted by World War II. He was a Lieutenant in the Air Force and served in Greenland as a communications officer. After the war, he returned to Chicago and was a Certified Life Underwriter for Mutual Benefit Life of Newark, NJ.

He was the son of Jacob and Sylvia Greenberg, and he married the late Wanda Henderson in 1952. They had two sons, Mitchell and Lawrence.