Robert lansdorp biography
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Robert Lansdorp
and the Champion's Mind
Printable Version
Taking lessons from Robert Lansdorp put me in the thick of Southern California tennis. |
Editor's Note: This exclusive excerpt from Pete Sampras's new autobiography tells the story of Robert Lansdorp's early and lasting influence on Pete's game starting when the Sampras family moved from Maryland to Palos Verdes California in 1978.
Shortly after we got to Palos Verdes, we found out that it was a tennis-rich environment. The Jack Kramer Club, which had been instrumental in developing so many fine players (including Tracy Austin), was nearby in Rolling Hills. And then there was West End, where I began taking lessons from one of the all-time great coaches, Robert Lansdorp.
I was a shy, introverted kid, but if you “took” from Lansdorp, you were right in the thick of things and a lot of people checked you out. It seems weird now, but we were told shortly after I started working on my
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The most influential and impactful junior tennis coach to ever teach on Southern California courts was honored by some of his past Grand Slam champion players, longtime members of his former private club and others associated with the SoCal Pro Series event taking place at the Jack Kramer Club in the South Bay recently.
The legendary Robert Lansdorp is 85 years old and has been dealing with some health issues of late and relies on an oxygen tank to ease his breathing. But that didn’t stop USTA Southern California Board First Vice President Chris Boyer and board member Otis Smith, as well as USTA SoCal Executive Director Trevor Kronemann, in joining Kramer Club GM Peter Smith and welcoming Lansdorp back to his roots and the club where it all began.
For more than 90 minutes Lansdorp took part in a lively Q&A with one of his earliest students, Hall of Famer Tracy Austin, and talked about replacing Kramer Club’s co-founder Vic Braden in the spring of 1970 and coaching the 7-y
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Robert Lansdorp
I was born in Indonesia and lived there for a total of about 10 years. First until inom was 8.
At that time I went to Holland with the help of the Red Cross with my mom, dad, and sister Louise. My first 8 years in Indonesia were very tough. inom was poisoned when inom was 3 by one of the chauffeurs my dad fired. My dad was Dutch born in Indonesia and worked for Good Year. My mom is Dutch and her parents were Dutch and Scottish. inom survived the poisoning because I apparently was a little piglet and ate a lot.
Then the war broke out. My father was captured and put in a Japanese koncentration camp. My mom had false papper that she was Danish and stuck to her words even after she was being tortured. inom am not going into detail now, maybe later. After the war the Indonesians wanted their independence from the Dutch and tried to kill the Dutch. All the Dutch families decided to go to this emptied Japanese concentration camp because they felt it best to gather in numbers.
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