Creating American
Champions

By Robert Lansdorp

United States junior tennis is in huge trouble. I don't see a new group of juniors coming up to take the place of players like Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. You can't bank on one kid. You've have to have about 12 kids that show unbelievable promise and you might get lucky enough to have one that is great. I don't see that.

Jack Kramer wrote an article 15 years ago. He said junior players all have these weird, extreme grips. We're never going to have anymore champions. I wrote back and came up with 20 kids that potentially showed something, that had good grips: players like Agassi, Sampras, Chang, Capriati. Kramer was wrong about the early 90's - there were a lot of really promising kids coming up. But he was right about the year 2000.

The very top players in the world, players like Sampras or Lindsay Davenport have grips that allow them to hit through the ball. But radical, under the handle western grips are dominating junior tennis. And if coaches continue to teach these grips, the United States will be in trouble for the next ten years or more.

The disadvantage of the underneath grip is that players can't handle a really fast ball. But the problem doesn't show up until it's too late. Little kids start out with the extreme grip and it looks alright, and they hit great high balls. In the 12's they look fantastic. In the 14's they look pretty good. In the 16's they might still do alright. By the 18's forget it. It's very, very difficult to become great with that grip.

When the ball comes low and very fast, the underneath grip is very awkward. When the ball is low and skids, you can't hit through the ball. You have to rotate the racket over too quickly and you can't stay with the ball. Because the racket is no longer going through the ball, you can't hit the ball as hard. Players can't really drive through the ball the same way. They have to hit more topspin, they shank a lot of shots, or they just hit short balls. They become very vulnerable.

Once a kid is comfortable with the under the handle grip, it's a nightmare. If you wait until the kid's 11, he's never going to change. There's something that feels so comfortable to the kid. I used to try to change it, but I don't anymore. You can't really change it because then they lose all feel. It's better to have a bad forehand than no forehand at all, but now the kid's future is more limited.

Everybody always talks about topspin. "He should put more topspin on his ball." They think they get more control, and that a harder, flatter ball means less control. It depends what you want to become. If you want to be a club player and hit all topspin and moon balls, that's fine. If you want to be a champion, forget it. The way I work it, everybody has a chance to be a champion. I teach them what a champion can become.

I teach the kids topspin - don't get me wrong. I teach them to drive the ball with topspin. I've also been teaching a new, heavier topspin forehand hit with the same grip, called the reverse forehand. That's the shot Pete Sampras made famous hitting on the run. But that's different than just hitting topspin for topspin's sake. At a certain level, maybe that's fine, but I couldn't do that to a kid. It's hard to tell when a kid is 9 years old that he or she is going to be one in the world, so you take it as if everybody is going to be number one in the world. Then you see.

Teaching pros think the extreme western is the right grip because it's a lot less work at the start. When the kid comes and has the lesson, and gets the ball in the court, that's considered good. Then the kid gets a couple more balls in - now the kid is fantastic. A young kid dealing with balls at shoulder level can do a lot better with that grip, get a lot more balls back, win more matches, make the parents happy.

And people believe learning these grips will help make their kid a great player. I think it's sad. If the kid happens to care and wants to be a great player, it's a shame. Maybe the parents and coaches don't do it on purpose, because they don't know better.

Recently, I've become a little braver about saying I started out 3 kids who became number one in the world: Pete Sampras, Tracy Austin and Lindsay Davenport. They were all taught the same way. And they were all from the area I live in around Pales Verdes. It's just a neighborhood really. I never recruit.

I made a list the other day that had 17 players I developed that became pros, and they lowest ranked ones were in the 70's. That's not counting all the other ones that were in the top 200. So it's possible I may know what I'm talking about. That's why I stress the way that you start your kids out. If you start kids with the right grips, in the long run, you have the best shot at developing great players. You may disagree, but I think I have a pretty good track record to support my views.