A Champion's Mind - Pete Sampras

cheap to build and easy to maintain. California evolved into a major tennis location. The earliest great
players to come out of the West Coast were guys like Ellsworth Vines, who is still legendary for his
awesome serve, Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzalez, Stan Smith, Billie Jean King, and Tracy Austin.
The big serve and an aggressive style of play were the underpinnings of the “California game.”
Techniquewise, tennis is played a little differently by region and on different surfaces. The contrasts are
pronounced enough so that the most common grips used in tennis—the Continental (European), Eastern,
and Western—are all named for the regions where they were popular and suited the courts in use.
Part of my legacy—or so I’m told, anyway—is that I came close to being the model all-around player. I
had a big serve and aggressive baseline game, which was pure, populist California. But I eventually
embraced serve-and-volley tennis and did my major damage on foreign soil at the greatest—and most
elite—tournament in the world, winning seven men’s singles titles at Wimbledon. The only surface I never
entirely mastered was slow European clay, insofar as I never won the biggest clay tournament, the French
Open.
In my style and results, I transcended my regional and even national background to a greater extent than
some of my predecessors as the world number one player. Take my countryman Jimmy Connors. Although
he was from Illinois, he relocated to California at an early enough age to mature his game on the hard
courts there. He “only” won Wimbledon twice, clinging to his all-court style, although that game was
good enough to earn him five U.S. Open titles, three on his beloved hard courts.
The most important thing about California was the opportunity presented by that strong, diverse, deeply
rooted tennis culture. Lacking a strong family background in tennis, we were going to have to play it by
ear and make it up as we went along. Thankfully, we were right in the eye of the Open-era hurricane that
started in 1968, when professional players finally were invited to compete with the amateurs at the four
“majors,” or Grand Slam events (the Australian, French, and U.S. Opens, and Wimbledon). That shift to
Open tennis ensured that all the good players in the world could compete in the same tournaments, so you
would end up with a true champ, and it launched a tennis boom that brought the game to millions of new
players and potential pros.
By the time I moved to California, the state was teeming with world-class players and prospects, and it
offered great development, training, and playing opportunities. It was mind-blowing—or would have
been, had we been aware of all that. But we were not.
Anyway, my father cashed out of the deli business. It was getting old for him, what with brothers-inlaw
for partners. He had done very well and he needed a break. He finally felt secure enough to take the
plunge that so many newly minted Americans and immigrants had taken before him. He was going west,
following the American Dream to California. After a few trips to the coast to establish our home in Palos
Verdes, he returned to Potomac and gathered us up.
One fine morning in 1978, he got us all packed into the car. I remember we had a tiny blue Ford Pinto, a
bare-bones economy car (the Pinto later became famous when somebody discovered that if you rearended
it, the car blew up). We piled into the Pinto—all six of us—and headed west. Wait, make that
seven, because we were also taking our parrot, Jose. If you’re familiar with the classic Chevy Chase
movie National Lampoon’s Vacation, you’ll know all you need to know about our situation.
I hit the ground running when we arrived in Palos Verde and moved into our modest 1,500-square-foot
home. As the oldest child, Gus had his own room, and I ended up sharing with Marion—in fact, I didn’t
have my own room until I was fifteen or sixteen. 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.