“You need to watch them,” he explained.
He finally came up with a solution. The sisters were playing on court two, which had a wooden shed set up with a camera to shoot footage of each player. You were supposed to go into the shed after your session and analyze yourself on film. Look at your feet! Look at how you dropped your shoulder! But no one ever did that. The shed was there so Nick could put it in a brochure: “We have a film room and video facilities.” It was dark and dank, filled with old equipment. Yuri got the key and snuck me in ten minutes before the sisters showed up. He rolled the camera away so I could watch through a kind of knothole—just me alone, in the dark, seeing the next twenty years of my life.
The image of the Williams sisters would eventually become iconic, and it was in the works even then. They’re a force. Tall girls in tennis whites, with bright smiles and piercing, focused eyes. They began hitting, easy at first, then with terrific pace. Their father—a tennis father, parental nut, the will behind the operation, really not all that different from my own father—leaned against the fence, calling out instructions and orders. The bleachers were filled—every kid in the academy was there. They hung on each shot and followed each volley like worshippers, like fans, like sheep. The sisters moved around the court with languid grace—Serena especially. She was younger but clearly stood out. She swung easily, but the ball smoked off her racket. Now and then, when a rally had gone one shot too long, she’d end it with a crosscourt winner. And yet, for all the power, for all the intensity of their practice, I had just one thought: I want to beat them.
In the spring of 1996, something big happened—bigger than picking up a new stroke, or developing my serve, or being signed by IMG. After years of waiting, my mom was finally granted her visa, and she joined us in Florida. She moved into the apartment in Bradenton. A few weeks later, I left the dorm and settled in the second bedroom. We were a family again. We ate meals together! And watched TV and talked together! I had not seen my mother in close to two years, but it was as if no time had passed. This was maybe the happiest time of my life. You don’t realize how much you’ve been missing someone until you have that person back.
My mom immediately put things in order. She threw out all my Kournikova hand-me-downs, fixed my hair, confiscated Yuri’s scissors. Never again would he cut my bangs. She fired my tutor. Now she and I would spend our evenings together, working on math problems, reading Russian literature. My mother, the most educated person in our family, took my education very seriously, and she was a wonderful teacher. She focused on the classics—the great Russian writers and poets—because that’s what she knew and loved. She took care of the food and the shelter and the love and everything else. In a few months, I went from being a kid living a strange existence to being an athlete from a warm, stable, conventional home.
Maybe this was when my father went sort of bonkers, because suddenly there really was nothing for him to think about but my tennis. I remember one night, sticking my head into his room. He was lying there, a light shining on his lap, filling page after page with notes. I tried to back out unnoticed, but he spotted me.
“Be ready,” he said.
“For what?”
“We’re going to Los Angeles.”
I did not believe him, but asked why anyway.
“Because that’s where Robert Lansdorp lives.”
“Who’s Robert Lansdorp?”
“The man who’s going to make you the number one player in the world.”
EIGHT
Robert Lansdorp was famous for the work he’d done with Tracy Austin and Pete Sampras, but he was a lot more than that. He really deserves a book of his own. He was white-haired, gravel-voiced, moody, tough, and mean, but also sentimental and generous and kind. And a brilliant tennis coach. He does not believe in bullshit inflation. If he compliments you, you deserve it. If he says you’re good, you are good. And what a story! He grew up in the Far East, in a Dutch colony that was conquered by the Japanese during World War II. His father, a Dutch businessman, was arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Robert had gone back to Holland with his family, and that’s where he learned to play tennis. When his father was released, the family went here and there, before heading to America in 1960.
Robert was twenty-two years old. He bought a car in New York and drove to Los Angeles, where he met up with the rest of his family. By the time he arrived, he had fallen in love with America. That’s what he said. He took up tennis again and began to play on a local circuit. He was a natural athlete and astonishingly good for an untrained player. He was spotted by a coach from Pepperdine—spotted because he kept beating that coach’s scholarship stars. Robert was given a scholarship of his own, went to college, and played tennis. He became an All-American player. He floated around the professional circuit afterward, but there wasn’t much money in it, and he eventually took a job at a resort in Mexico. Thus began his raffish life as a hotel tennis pro. He went from job to job, resort to resort, giving lessons in the morning and drinking with socialites in the afternoon. He found his way back to L.A., where he quickly became a sought-after coach. It was not just that he was a good teacher—it was that he had a philosophy, a way of thinking about the game. He distrusted the modern reliance on trickery and spin. He believed in a steady diet of low, hard, flat shots that just cleared the net—the kind of shot it takes guts to deliver because, if you miss by half an inch, you’re finished.
By the time Yuri learned about Lansdorp, he had become a fixture at the Riviera Club, a fancy spot in Beverly Hills. He charged an outrageous amount per hour for lessons and made most of his money teaching the children of movie producers and moguls. They all knew his record, the elite players he’d coached—Tracy Austin most famously. Austin and Lansdorp were a kind of team. They traveled together, became like family. She was his greatest pride, the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Open. Lansdorp went on to coach many greats—but he never stopped talking about Tracy Austin.
Yuri learned about Robert in one of the tennis magazines. He’d been working with Lindsay Davenport, and there was a picture of them together, walking off the court. It impressed Yuri because Yuri was impressed by Lindsay. He’d seen her play at a tournament and was convinced that my game should be like her game. She was not especially fast, nor did she look very strong, but she had such tremendous power. Those hard, flat, spinless shots! According to the article, this style and those shots owed a lot to the teaching of Robert Lansdorp.
Yuri tracked down Lansdorp’s phone number—probably a spare line at the Riviera—and called one afternoon. Yuri got him on about the fifteenth ring. Lansdorp was gruff.
“Who is this?”
“Yuri Sharapov.”
“Who gave you my number?”
“IMG.”
“Why would they do that? Bastards. What do you want?”
“I want to bring you my daughter.”
“What am I supposed to do with your daughter?”
“Coach her at tennis.”
“Who is your daughter?”
“Maria Sharapova.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Ask around. She is something special.”
“Do you know my rates? You can’t afford me. I am incredibly expensive.”
“We’re fine with the money.”
“Where are you at the moment?”
“Nick Bollettieri.”
“Who is Nick Bollettieri?”
We took the next plane—it felt that way, anyway. Just like that, we were in Los Angeles. My father had me call Lansdorp from the airport’s pay phone. We needed directions to the club in Beverly Hills, and he figured I’d have better luck with Lansdorp on the phone. It’s harder to be gruff and sarcastic to a little kid.