A Champion's Mind - Pete Sampras

could sense he didn’t like that job. I think it was a reaction to not getting enough of Dad for himself; he felt
a little left out because Stella and I, especially as we got a little older, were catered to in the family.
Sometimes Gus could be a little bit of a pain in the ass. I remember my dad got him this guitar, and he’d
come into Stella’s room, or our (my and Marion’s) room, and he would start playing really loud and
yelling. It was obnoxious, but I guess he just wanted a little attention—he was annoyed at me because it
seemed to him that I was being spoiled, so he would just bang away on his guitar.
Stella, who now coaches the UCLA women’s tennis team, could do no wrong. She was the perfect
daughter, and maybe that was because she was more outgoing and expressive, and kind of up for anything
—as well as talented in tennis. It was one of those deals where my parents just felt that if she and Gus
were getting into a fight, it was always Gus’s fault. I didn’t mix it up much with Stella; our common
interest in tennis made us allies.
My most powerful memory of Stella is from a day when we were taking a lesson from Robert
Lansdorp. (It may come as a surprise, but I almost always shared my lessons with Stella—she had thirty
minutes, and I had thirty. It was written in stone.) So this one time, she was at the net and Robert was
really banging balls at her. He was being extra mean, which is saying a lot, and she was trying to fend off
his shots—almost in self-defense. And she started hyperventilating, and then crying. “Why are you
crying?” Robert asked in his gruff voice, feigning disgust. “Come on, toughen up.” And Stella turned away
from him; she couldn’t take his demanding ways anymore. I remember walking over and putting my arm
around her and trying to console her. I just said, “It’s okay, Stella, everything is going to be all right.” It
was kind of funny. Here I was, this twelve-year-old kid, consoling somebody: “Aw, don’t worry, it’s
okay.” I felt so bad for her that I remember this incident as if it happened yesterday.
My other sister, Marion, played a little tennis and she was pretty good at it. But as the youngest child,
she was slightly overshadowed. It wasn’t surprising that it happened, because she was introverted, and I
think she had a hard time trying to keep up and fit in with the rest of us. Trouble was, Stella and I were
always playing tennis, and Gus was a boy and so many years older that Marion really had nowhere to
turn. It was sometimes hard for her.
When Marion got a little older, she found God and really blossomed; her faith helped her get through
her awkward teenage years, and she made a lot of friends through her church. She eventually became
more confident, outgoing, and talkative, and evolved into a wonderful person. I believe in God, though
I’m not especially religious. But in Marion I’ve seen how much faith can do for someone.
In the big picture, we were good kids who got along well, despite the inevitable conflicts and sibling
rivalries. If our parents played favorites with Stella and me, it wasn’t because they loved us more—it
was because of tennis. I think that message somehow got through. I hope it did. And maybe that was why
things never got rough or ugly. In some ways, we were an All-American family; in other ways, we were
anything but. And we are very close, to this day.
By the age of eight, I was really serious about tennis. The days when I was content to have my mom feed
me balls in her spare time were over. I was getting a strong dose of lessons. When I think about my
developmental days, I have a vivid memory of my dad having to go to the ATM to take out sixty bucks, or
whatever it was at the time, and giving it to me so I could pay Robert Lansdorp.
Cha-ching, cha-ching. There were lots of visits to the cash machine. My dad didn’t make a lot of
money, but he had put some away from his restaurant business and he had a pretty good job. He needed
those resources when the big expenses began to kick in.
Soon after Fischer began advising my dad and taking on his role as the overseer of my development, I
settled into a consistent training pattern. Lansdorp was the forehand and groundstroke guy, Fischer was
involved in developing my serve, and another local coach, Del Little, was the footwork and balance