Lansdorp Makes Impact on Best of Generations

Robert Lansdorp has been waiting a long time to talk, literally and figuratively.

When he sat down to chat on Friday at the Manhattan Country Club, an ordinary sports day was transformed when Steffi Graf announced her retirement from tournament tennis. Reaction to her decision was coming in from the players at the Acura Classic, as well as all over the world.

That would have to wait--at least for a bit--after Lansdorp posed three questions.

“So what do you want to talk about?” he asked. “Do you want to know where I got poisoned when I was four? Or do you want to know about the time my mother was tortured and interrogated by the Japanese?”

He wasn’t kidding. Both incidents happened when he was a child growing up in Indonesia. His father had fired a servant, who returned to poison the 4-year-old, he said. Lansdorp joked that his large appetite saved him from dying.

“I was such a piglet in those days,” he said. “I had eaten so much food that when I got sick, it [the poison] didn’t affect me. So I like to eat. I have such a hang-up about it, constantly I think I am going to get poisoned.”

Humor, blended with toughness, has been an integral part of his successful coaching methods. Lansdorp, the preeminent tennis coach in Southern California for the last three decades, received plenty of recognition in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when he guided his young protege, Tracy Austin of Rolling Hills Estates, to the top of women’s tennis.

Austin turned pro in 1978 and won the U.S. Open a year later, the youngest player to win the event, at 16 years nine months.

But recent recognition has been overdue. This is obvious when you look at the long list of his former pupils, among others, Austin, Brian Teacher and Eliot Teltscher in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, Jeff Tarango, Stephanie Rehe, Kimberly Po, Michael Joyce, Melissa Gurney, Justin Gimelstob and Alexandra Stevenson in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

For the 58-year-old Lansdorp, who has been working at Riviera Country Club for almost three years, the final weekend of Wimbledon was a particularly proud two days. Two players from Palos Verdes he coached as kids, Sampras and Davenport, won the singles titles. One of his current charges, Stevenson, became the first female qualifier to reach the semifinals, losing to Davenport.

“I never look at a kid and say, ‘I’m going to make this kid No. 1,’ ” he said. “It’s like a year-by-year process. I’m excited by the progress they make. They don’t always know that because I’m not very generous with compliments.”

Stevenson said that Lansdorp used to make her cry. But she would do it after lessons when he couldn’t see her. But he has changed.

“Oh, totally,” she said. “He’s mellowed out the last two years. He’s got a lot calmer.”

Said Lansdorp: “The one that mellowed me a little bit was probably my daughter Stephanie. She didn’t teach me a lot. But she made me realize tennis is a great game, but the relationship with your daughter is far better than tennis.”

He may be kinder and gentler on the court. But he is amazingly candid about all of his pupils, delivering quick assessments:

* On Teltscher: “Unbelievable one-handed backhand. I can still see it.”

* On Austin: “She was probably the most competitive. You could make her do things and she would do them. If you would give somebody else a compliment, she would show you that she could do it better.”

* On Sampras: “He was 8 or 9 years old when he first came to me, very tiny little kid. He was so quick. You knew the kid was going to be a great player. What I remember about Pete was he was such a happy kid, so happy. We always called him Smiley.”

* On Davenport: “She doesn’t show it, but let me tell you, she is tough. She was tough when she was young, feisty. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to be great. I don’t get nervous that much anymore, but when she had that little lapse [in the 1998 U.S. Open final], I said, ‘Don’t let it last too long.’ ”

* On Po: “She was the worst one there [at practice]. She lost all her matches, 6-0, 6-0. We didn’t know what to do with her. But she stuck it out. Nobody would bring their boyfriend or girlfriend to the court because they always figured I’d harass them. She would always bring her boyfriends to me. She would coach them so well--they were so overly polite--I could never say anything.

“She said 10 years ago that she was going to quit and go to UCLA. And she’s still playing.”

* On Tarango: “I use him a lot as an example of a kid that was not hugely talented but had an unbelievable work ethic. He would go out and his mother would hit him balls.”

* On Joyce: “He got a spanking [from me] when he was 12. I used to play points and I would cheat them on purpose to see if they would fall apart. I cheated him. He’s so competitive and so angry, so I hit the next ball and he cheated me.

“I said that there was no way that ball was out. He actually raised his voice at me. I go to the other side and ask his father, ‘Is it all right if I give the kid a spanking?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ It was all a setup, nothing mean was intended. I go over and give him a whack on the butt and told him to get out of there.

“He was crying and saying, ‘I hate that guy.’ Sure enough, two days later I get a phone call and he said, ‘Robert, I’m really sorry I raised my voice at you. I won’t do it again.’ ”

* On the hard-hitting Stevenson: “I always feel it’s a lot more difficult to hit huge shots than it is to temper yourself. On grass, she would hit a great shot and it would be gone. Here, it would come back and she’d hit an even bigger shot. I think that is solvable.

“I’ve known her since she was 9 years old. In all those years, she has never come on the court with a bad attitude, always with a smile.”