Hidden Secrets of the Greats: The Insouciance of Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras is considered by many to be the greatest tennis player of all time. He owns 14 Grand Slam titles and was ranked as the ATP Number One Player of the Year six consecutive times. He won the U.S. Open at the age of 19 and earned $43,280,000 over the course of his career in prize money. The list goes on and on.
Ironically and sadly, the public never embraced Sampras. He has amazing power, finesse, grace, speed and a devastating serve, yet people described him as cool, deadpan and robotic. Whenever I saw him play, I always thought of him as being a combination of an NFL wide receiver and a ballet dancer. So what was the secret to Sampras’ rise to the top?
He was the third sibling and both of his parents were Greek. His dad worked as an engineer for NASA. Pete discovered a tennis racket in the basement of their Maryland home at the age of three and he spent hours alone in the basement hitting balls against the wall. The family moved to sunny California when he was seven-years-old and he had a chance to play tennis more often. They enrolled him in the Jack Kramer Tennis Club where he was put under the tutelage of Jack Fischer who was a local pediatrician and tennis buff. Under Fischer’s guidance, Sampras was placed with various tennis gurus to work on various aspect of his game. Fischer saw greatness in Sampras and instilled a belief that he was destined to win Grand Slam titles. And little Pete listened and learned well. Pete was also taught to control all of his emotions at all times. Under Fischer’s coaching, Sampras won his first U.S. Open at the age of 19.
As I usually do, I put in my call to Steven Kaplan, director of Bethpage Park Tennis Center, and asked him what he thought was Sampras’ secret weapon.
“Sampras had great court presence and vision, was vey calculating and cunning … very smart on the court,” said Kaplan. “He never reveled in victory, but hated to lose. He was a very distant, invisible and disconnected person to meet.”
And as Steve spoke, I thought of how Sampras followed on the heels of the McEnroe-Connors Era, the kings of vulgarity and how unnerving that must have been for the tennis fan to see when they had grown so use to screaming and cursing champions. Sampras was routinely criticized for being dull.
Paul Annacone was Sampras’ coach for many years and described Pete as a very normal guy with low key tastes. He liked to get up every morning, have his cereal and play tennis for three hours. Then, he would have lunch and go play a round of golf. Then, it was home to bed and time to do it all again the next day. A very simple, non-flamboyant and steady lifestyle. The anti-Agassi.
So after all my research, what is my conclusion about the Sampras secret? It is very simple. He displays the profile of the gifted child. Solitary, obsessed with one thing, curious about learning, alone, smart, isolated and driven. Sampras’ cool demeanor is a sign of being highly focused and also serves as his defense against being overwhelmed by too much attention. And in his case, this cool and focused defense is a perfect attitude to have when playing tennis. It is not for everyone, but it works for the highly gifted child. Tiger Woods is exactly the same way both publicly and privately. The very intelligent child withdraws into him or herself where they work on their ambitions in private, thus you see little Pete spending hours every day throughout his childhood hitting balls against his basement wall.
Tip: If you have a child who likes to play his or her sport alone and with intense focus for long hours each day, you may have a gifted child on your hands. If this is so, your job is to facilitate their growth in whatever domain they are interested in pursuing.
