A Champion's Mind - Pete Sampras

were really into my story.
These rapid changes tied to my sudden success threatened the status quo I had established. There was
no way Pete Fischer was going to give up his career in medicine to travel with me. But Pete loved
publicity, and he enjoyed taking credit for shaping my game. As I started to become the player he had
predicted right before his eyes, it made him a little crazy and greedy. Also, while he was back home in
California, I was in Florida training with various coaches whose credentials were far more impressive
than Fischer’s. He was probably afraid he was going to be cut out of the action, so he tried to retain
control even if he couldn’t—make that wouldn’t—be my regular coach. And he wanted to be compensated
for his trouble.
Even before my big upset of Wilander, Pete had started making some huge demands—astronomical
demands. Pete wanted something like 25 percent of my Grand Slam earnings, 50 percent of something
else. He basically wanted a cut of everything. One night Fischer showed up at our home in California and
wrote down his demands on a paper plate: If I achieved a Grand Slam, winning all four majors in the
same calendar year, he wanted a bundle of rewards—including a Ferrari Testarossa. That was written on
the plate. In fact, I remember that in one story Pete did with Tennis magazine there was a picture of him
sitting in an umpire’s chair, wearing a hat with the logo of . . . Ferrari.
The night Pete waved that plate around was surreal; I remember it in detail to this day. He and my dad
had a huge fight. It got very uncomfortable, because Fischer was like family and nobody was trying to
screw him out of anything. We knew what he’d done for us, we were grateful, but the long-distance
coaching arrangement he proposed was untenable, and his demands seemed outrageous. As he was losing
it, emotionally, he seemed bent on blowing up the whole relationship. On another level, it was just funny. I
remember thinking: I’m just a seventeen-year-old kid, I can barely keep two balls in the court, and Pete
is talking about me winning a Grand Slam (something only two men in the entire history of the game
have accomplished) and getting a Testarossa out of the deal?
The craziest thing is that it wasn’t like Fischer needed the money. He was a wealthy doctor with a great
practice, and he lived on a five-acre estate. Our relationship effectively ended the night of the paper plate.
My dad quietly decided to cut him off, and he had an even more powerful reason for that than the demands
Fischer was making. Dad was worried that I relied too much on Pete, and that my development was being
arrested. I needed to get out in the world and learn to deal with it, firsthand.
As the rift with Fischer grew wider, I was resolved to hire a coach. I settled on Joe Brandi. It was a
good fit; I was living at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, and Joe was coaching there. He was tight
with Jim and his coach, Sergio Cruz, so the four of us spent a lot of time together on the road. By then, I
had a solid idea of how he operated. Joe was an older guy, in his fifties or thereabouts, when he started
traveling with me. It was a sweet arrangement: Jim and I practiced and played doubles together (we won
the Italian Open in 1989). After workouts or matches, the four of us went out to dinner. I can’t exactly say
Joe and I really bonded, because he was so much older. Maybe it was better that way, too, because I
needed to come into my own as a man, and Jim was there as a buddy and brother-like figure to ease the
transition.
My results opened doors for me. Ivan Lendl called late in 1989 and invited me to stay with him and his
family at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut (he always pronounced it “Connect-E-coot”). He was the
top player in the world at the time, and he lived in this huge mansion. After I stowed my stuff in a guest
room, he introduced me to his wife, Samantha, showed me his dogs (Lendl bred German shepherds), and
gave me a tour of his grounds and facilities. When I next spoke with my dad, I eagerly told him all I had
seen, and he just said that if I worked as hard as Lendl had, I could create that kind of a life for myself,
too.
Ivan had that iron man reputation and image, and he definitely could be intimidating, with that clipped
Czech accent and hard-assed attitude. But he welcomed me into his home and made me feel comfortable.