Meet Van Winitsky: Tennis Career Overview
The Early Junior Tennis Years
Born on March 12, 1959 in Miami, Florida, Van started playing tennis at age 8 and a 1/2. His father Manny was his first coach. From age 12 – 18, Van won 8 national junior tennis championships including Junior Wimbledon, the 18’s Boys Nationals in both singles and doubles, the Junior Forest Hills ( US Open ), US National junior title at Kalamazoo, MI, and the Orange Bowl 3 times. Van is very proud of the fact that no one else won Junior Wimbledon, The US Open and the US Nationals in the same year since then (1977). During this period, Van played against the likes of Mel Purcell, Brian Gottfried and John McEnroe.
When it was time for college, Van decided to attend UCLA, where he was an All-American. He was a member of the Junior Davis Cup Team. He was at UCLA a year and a half when he decided to turn pro.
Despite suffering an injury to his left shoulder which plagued him throughout his career, Van had a successful pro tennis career in singles and doubles in which he travelled around the world. Van played on the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1978 with John McEnroe, Brian Gottfried and Harold Solomon. He attained a career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world in doubles and No. 32 in the world in singles. Van’s career doubles record was 150–119.
- 1981 Hong Kong Seiko Open
- 1982 Hollywood Classic in Guaruja, Brazil
- 1982 WCT Shipyard Classic in Hilton Head, SC.
Career Men’s Doubles Titles (9):
- 1978 South American Open, Buenos Aires, Argentina (w/ Lewis)
- 1978 Volvo International, North Conway, NH (w/ R.Drysdale)
- 1978 Bank of Oklahoma Classic, Tulsa, OK (w/ R.Simpson)
- 1981 Tel Aviv (w/ Meister)
- 1981 Cleveland, OH (w/ Van Dillen)
- 1981 Washington D.C. (w/Ramirez)
- 1982 South Orange, NJ (w/ Ramirez)
- 1982 Washington D.C. (w/ Ramirez)
- 1982 Las Colinas WCT, Dallas TX (w/Odizor)
Mixed Doubles Titles
- 1978 Hartford, CT (w/ Edmondson)
- 1978 US Professional Clay Courts, Boston, MA (w/ Gunthardt)
- 1980 South Orange NJ (w/ Buehning)
- 1980 Tulsa, OK (w/ F. Gonzalez)
- 1981 Bangkok (w/ Bourne)
- 1981 US Clay Courts Indianapolis (w/ Ramirez)
- 1982 Hong Kong (w/ Warwick)
- 1982 Hilton Head WCT (w/ Waldman)
- 1982 Las Vegas, NV (w/ Kirmayr)
- 1983 US Open (w/ Buehning)
- 1983 Guaruja, Brazil (w/ Glickstein).
Senior Pro Tennis