Ray Senkowski (February 18, 1941 - December 24, 1995) was an American

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

player. He grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan, and at age 17 won the 1958 national scholastic tennis championship in Charlottesville, Virginia, defeating

Frank Froehling Frank Arthur Froehling III (May 19, 1942 – January 23, 2020) was an American tennis player. During his college career at Trinity University Froehling recorded 46–5 in singles matches and won nine singles titles. He was runner-up at U.S. ...

. At the tournament now known as the

Cincinnati Masters The Cincinnati Open (also known as the Cincinnati Masters) is an annual professional tennis event held in Cincinnati, United States. Due to previous sponsorship, it has also been known as: the Thriftway ATP Championships, the Great American I ...

, he reached the semifinals in 1959, defeating Reg Bennett of Great Britain in the Round of 16 and Rudy Hernando in the quarterfinals before falling to No. 1 seed

Whitney Reed Whitney Reed (August 20, 1932 – January 9, 2015) was a U.S. No. 1 tennis player from the United States who was active in the 1950s and 1960s. Reed was ranked No. 1 amateur in the United States in 1961 and was ranked in the U.S. amateur top te ...

. Also in 1959, he defeated top-seeded

Ian Vermaak Ian Clyde Vermaak (28 March 1933 – 21 January 2025) was a tennis player competing for Union of South Africa, South Africa. Biography As the No. 4 seed he finished runner-up to Nicola Pietrangeli in the singles final of the French Open, Frenc ...

at the Western Open. Senkowski was recruited by coach Bill Murphy and enrolled at the University of Michigan where he won the 1961

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

singles and doubles championships (with Wayne Peacock) and was a three-time All-American (1961-1963). He lost 6–1, 6–2, 6–4 to

Allen Fox Allen E. Fox (born June 25, 1939) is an American former tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s who went on to be a college coach and author. He was ranked as high as U.S. No. 4 in 1962, and was in the top ten in the U.S. five times between 1961 ...

of UCLA in the singles finals of the 1961 NCAA Tennis Championships at Iowa State University. He was inducted into the

University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor The University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor, founded in 1978, recognizes University of Michigan#Athletics, University of Michigan sportsperson, athletes, Coach (sports), coaches, and administrators who have made significant contributions to t ...

in 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Senkowski, Ray 1941 births 1995 deaths American male tennis players Michigan Wolverines men's tennis players Tennis players from Michigan 20th-century American sportsmen