I just want to say thanks to both tennisking1 and Bubo for the above great discussion. A lot of great insight can be gleaned from their sharing their respective experiences. I agree with a lot of what was said. Also, as part of my History of Tennis Instruction book that I have partially published online, I have interviewed a lot of coaches, and when I coached in California in 2007, I had a chance to speak several times with Dr. Pete Fischer, who has been coaching Vince, known for changing coaches like shirts since he dumped his father nine years ago. At 34, Vince made it to the 2008 Australian Open quarters then coached by Fischer.
Bubo, I enjoyed your tennis story and read everything and you are correct, taking someone from scratch is very rare like you did. Even Bollettieri admitted in 2007 he had never taken a player from scratch all the way to the pros though the then 7 year old he was taking over was already a phenom when he decided to take her on, so I don't know if she'll count. Dr. Pete Fisher of course, was the primary coach for young Pete Sampras from 8 to 18 though because he was a doctor, Sampras had to go to other coaches to play full time, such as Robert Lansdorp. Interesting that Sampras never credits Lansdorp publicly on his biographies and public interviews, and after I did my research, I think I understand why but I don't want to disparage Landsdorp here because in my book, I am undecided how to portray him, kind of a dinosaur forced to live in the modern age. You guys are funny and right on how coaches who work with a player as a hitting partner or just temporarily are wanting to credit such as for Venus and Serena. Richard used a lot of people to help his daughter I discovered; though he was a marketing genius and played the big three against each other until he got Macci to bite.
Lansdorp takes credit for Tracy Austin, but I've spoken with Pam Austin who gives a different viewpoint given Tracy was from a tennis family of champions and was going to be playing tennis full time from her first steps as a human which explains why Vic Braden wound up with her at 4 and 5. Macci tries to take credit for Capriati but Jimmy Evert was coaching her three times a week and developed her strokes with her father. One coach who worked at Macci's told me when Jennifer arrived there at age 10, she could beat every 18 year old girl there from the baseline if she didn't have to serve. Is Macci responsible for her being a champion or did he just have a hand?
Anyway, Fischer has done something truly unique in the annals of coaching. He takes Sampras at age 8 (Sampras' family had moved from Washington DC)and studies the great pro strokes and biomechanically figures out how to teach Sampras the modern tennis swing because he doesn't have preconceptions to teach something silly like the Standard Method. When Pete becomes famous, the NY Times hires a local California freelance sports writer to interview Fischer as Pete's coach and explain how he did it. This female writer has a tall eight year old daughter who is not that interested in basketball despite her famous bloodlines. She lives 60 miles down the coast from Fischer but asks will he look at her daughter to see if she can learn tennis. The mom/writer winds up driving three times a week and Fischer starts the process all over again, even teaching her to emulate Laver's one handed BH, and this little girl would be coached from scratch and win the 1997 Doubles 18 and unders title at the US Open with one of the hardest serves in all of women's tennis, just like Sampras had an incredible serve. Though Fischer could not coach her at into the pros due to some personal problems, the girl reached the Wimbledon semi's before Davenport crushed her which may or may not have had something to do with that same morning it came out that Alexandra Stephenson was Julius Erving's daughter. Stephenson had back then the third hardest women's serve ever measure, as Fischer taught her the same methodology he used with Sampras. Fischer took two from scratch and should be credited for two top twenty players, one on each tour and one an all time great. Very impressive.
If you guys know any stories I should add to the History of Tennis Instruction, published on
www.moderntenniscoaches.com in the MTM Library, I will add them or feel free to let me know if you think I misportrayed anything. As noted, a lot of revisionist history goes on in tennis. I have the opinion that Tom Stow might have been the greatest tactical coach who ever lived? Are you familiar with him and the many coaches he developed? (Stefanki Brothers, Doug King, Brent Abel, Jim McLennan, and many more) Also, with pro players, no one has a track record as good as Stefanki, or am I wrong. We don't hear about the ones that Nicky B. couldn't help (with Agassi maybe bashing Nick a little unfairly given Nick did provide a playground for Andre, at least).