What Else Is There To Say About Robert?
John Yandell
What else is there to say about the life of Robert Lansdorp? In the past 2 months we've put up portraits from two of the best writers in tennis, Barry Buss (Click Here) and Mark Winters (Click Here.)
But Robert had a big impact on Tennisplayer in the early days—a huge positive for us but also (as he acknowledged) for him. So here is that story.
My friend and longtime Tennisplayer contributor Allen Fox made the introduction and shortly thereafter I drove down to southern Cal to do our first interview. Now this was in the days before Siri, and I got fully lost.
I called Robert to apologize and say I'd be 30 minutes late. That was when I heard the bark for the first time, but not the last. I thought he was gonna cancel, but after berating me for awhile for wasting his valuable time he relented. And with better directions from Robert I was on my way.
Music
When I arrived and went to the front door, I could hear music, acoustic guitar and singing—it was nice music, pretty and resonant. Robert didn't open the door til the song was finished. And that's when I found out it was no recording, that was Robert. I was kind of stunned but impressed.
He played a few more times for me over the years as I got to know him. It wasn't like I was tolerating him to flatter him, I liked it. He had true musical talent.
