Van Winitsky (born March 12, 1959) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. He achieved a career-high rankings of World No. 7 in doubles in October 1983 and world No. 35 in singles in February 1984.

Early and personal life

Winitsky was born in Miami, Florida, lived in Lauderhill, Florida, and is Jewish. His father Manny Winitsky was the best player of his age in Florida for 15 years, beginning at age 45. He lives in Delray Beach, Florida. Van attended

North Miami Beach Senior High School North Miami Beach Senior High School (NMB High School) is a secondary school located at 1247 NE 167 Street in North Miami Beach, Florida, United States. Its current principal is Randy Milliken. NMB High School was built in 1971 as an overcrowdi ...

and won the Florida state high school singles tennis championships as a freshman in 1974.

Tennis career

Winitsky won Junior Wimbledon, Junior U.S. Open and Junior Nat'l at Kalamazoo, Mich. in singles and doubles in 1977 and won 3 Junior Orange Bowl singles titles. He played college tennis for

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

for one and a half years, and was an All American. He played on the 1978 U.S. Davis Cup team in with

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Brian Gottfried Brian Edward Gottfried (born January 27, 1952) is a retired American tennis player who won 25 singles titles and 54 doubles titles during his professional career. He was the runner-up in singles at the 1977 French Open, won the 1975 and 1977 Fren ...

, and

Harold Solomon Harold Solomon (born September 17, 1952) is an American former professional tennis player Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). ...

. Winitsky enjoyed most of his tennis success while playing doubles. During his career, he won 9 ATP Tour doubles titles and finished runner-up an additional 11 times. Partnering

Fritz Buehning Fritz Buehning (born March 5, 1960) is an American former tennis player. Born in Summit, New Jersey, Buehning grew up in Millburn, New Jersey and attended Millburn High School, where he won the New Jersey state individual tennis championship in ...

in doubles, Winitsky finished runner-up at the 1983 US Open. Winitsky also was a quarter finalist in mixed doubles partnering with Rayni Fox Borinsky at the 1980 US Open. He won 3 ATP Tour singles titles and finished runner-up 1 additional time. His titles included 1981 Hong Kong Seiko Open over Mark Edmondson of Australia, 1982 Hollywood Bowl Classic in Guaruja, Brazil over Carlos Kirmayr of Brazil, and 1982 Hilton Head Shipyard WCT over Chris Lewis of New Zealand in the finals. His runner-up finish was the 1978 Cleveland Grand Prix against Peter Feigl of Austria. At just before 21st birthday, he had surgery that resulted in a 16-inch scar and atrophied muscles. In 1985, he retired from ATP Tour after winning the WTT conference championships for the Miami Beach Breakers.

Career finals

Doubles (11 titles, 9 runner-ups)

References

External links