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-year-old Austin, being one of the first full-time travel coaches and leading her to become the youngest US Open singles champion at the age of 16 in 1979. 

While Austin was the one who put the Lansdorp name on the national coaching map, it was the great San Diego junior Walter Redondo who helped Lansdorp land his job at the Kramer Club. 

“Walter Redondo was the most talented boy that I ever worked with,” Lansdorp said of Redondo, who was in attendance to honor his old coach. “I started coaching Walter at Morley Field at Balboa Park. I give Walter the credit for starting my career in coaching. I didn’t really know what I was doing but with Walter, whatever you told him to do he would do it, because he was so talented.”

Lansdorp’s name started becoming known locally when Redondo and his sister Marita would come to Los Angeles and “win all the big tournaments.” 

Born in Indonesia and raised by a strict father in Holland, Lansdorp played for Pepperdine in the early-1960s. He said he always loved coaching in the public parks and favored that over the private clubs. “I’m kind of considered a maverick, I don’t have an academy,” he once told Tennis Channel. “I love the one-on-one.” 

In the room on Lansdorp’s special night were Grand Slam champions like Austin, Eliot Teltscher, Kimberly Po and Justin Gimelstob and there were video tributes from Hall of Famers Pete Sampras and Lindsay Davenport. 

“His way, even though it’s orthodox, you can’t argue with the results,” Davenport told TC on the video that played, “Robert’s very loud. You immediately feel his presence when you walk on the court.”

Former Top 20 WTA player Melissa Gurney is still very close to her former coach and brought him to the event. “He was with me at my first French Open,” she said. “He’s like a second father to me. Even when I finished playing I would think, ‘He won’t care about me because I’m not a tennis player anymore.’ But I would call him and we would talk and he would give me the best advice. He’s just so unique.”

Lansdorp said Teltscher had one of the purest one-handed backhands he ever coached and was so mentally strong as a young player. Teltscher said you had no choice but to be ready for whatever Lansdorp threw at you during a private lesson. “You knew it was coming so either you got ready for it and you could deal with it, or you suffered through it.” 

Added Gimelstob: “He was a huge part of my life. My dad was a basketball coach and his brother was an assistant for Bobby Knight. So my dad said these tennis coaches are too soft. We need to find a Bobby Knight. So we came out here when I was 12 and stayed all summer. I ended up living with him. Like Tracy said, he was a tennis coach but there was so much more, and he was so impactful in our lives.”

Lansdorp’s words of wisdom have been well chronicled over the years and are always good reminders for those younger players seeking advice. Lee DeYoung sat down with Lansdorp a few years ago on his Tennis Legends Legacy show and got these comments from Lansdorp: 

“Consistency, placement and power. Those are the three things you have to have. If you have to miss one of those three, miss the power. Because if you’re consistent and you place the ball well, in the women not in the men, you could still amount to something. If you have a lot of power but you’re inconsistent, you’re never going to make it. So, to become great, those are the things that you have to have.”

And this: “My father disciplined me, but he was fair. People think I’m this rough, tough guy, and I am, but I’m fair…To create great players there first has to be discipline. Forget the talent. If you don’t have discipline, you’re not going to succeed at anything…All my lessons are based on discipline.”

(To watch the complete interview, click here: https://www.tennislegendslegacy.com/#/robertlansdorp/)

Lansdorp reiterated a story at the recent event about coaching a young Austin. 

“I almost changed Tracy’s two-handed backhand to a one-handed because that’s what everyone was doing,” he said. “But Tracy’s two-handed backhand was so well-timed. Thank God, I never changed it.”

Lansdorp did something no one has ever done before – coach four players to the world No. 1 ranking over four decades – Austin, Sampras, Davenport and Maria Sharapova. The magic has always been in the coaching, and what Lansdorp brought to each of the individuals he taught was a special desire to make them great.

“It’s like I had all these great players from the Kramer Club, and they would ask me how was this possible?” Lansdorp said. “I would tell them it’s the water we drink. It’s so stupid. It’s the way they were trained.”