Memories of Robert
By Barry Buss
On Monday morning, September 16th, 2024, tennis lost one of its iconic figures: famed coach Robert Lansdorp. Here are a few words about the legendary teacher to so many of our sport's greatest players.
If you came of age during the tennis boom, Robert Lansdorp was a fixture on the professional tennis scene, developing one of America's first teen prodigies inTracy Austin.
Based in Southern California, Robert was the West Coast figurehead of the Boom's two great migrations of the late 1970's. In the east was Nick Bollettieri and his eponymous Academy in Bradenton, Florida, the first international full-time tennis academy for junior development.
In the west, there was Robert Lansdorp, who was based at West End Tennis Club in the South Bay area of Southern California. Before Tupac and Biggie, Bollettieri and Lansdorp were the original East Coast/West Coast rivals.
Two outsized egos, two different development philosophies. Bollettieri believed in the academy model, bringing talented teens together in a culture of hyper-competitiveness, a survival of the fittest mentality, where the best of the best would soar the highest on a crash course with greatness.
Robert believed differently. He believed tennis was best-learned one-on-one on a back court, coach-and-player, where minds and souls could be molded.
Field of Dreams
Families sent their kids to live and train at the NBTA. Families relocated to the South Bay to hopefully capture some of Robert's champion developing magic. Tennis' version of A Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. And come they did, from all corners of the world.
