Sam Landau sat with his hands clasped around his worn out white tennis shoes, staring toward the southeast corner of the Indiana University Tennis Center that once felt like his personal arena. He had lifted fans from metal bleachers with audacious shot-making and risen from anonymity to national prominence before walking away in a transfer that nearly pushed him out of the sport entirely. After that detour threatened to extinguish everything, he is finally rediscovering the spark that once defined him.

In December, Landau approached Indiana men’s tennis coach Jeremy Wurtzman and told him he planned to enter the transfer portal. He did not want to wait until May because he believed that credits at the Kelley School of Business would have been “impossible” to manage, and gaining admission to another business school would have been much harder. 

He continued to play through the rest of his sophomore season while his name was in the portal, and he picked up several meaningful victories. Still, he looks back and regrets the moment he chose to leave. 

Coaches contacted him before and after matches, which added tension. He even visited Duke during a weekend when Indiana had a match cancelled, and he acknowledged that the timing “wasn’t a good look” to his teammates.

Landau believed that a professional tennis career was within reach. He called playing professional tennis “super achievable,” and he wanted a chance to win a national championship. 

He did not believe Indiana’s setup pointed him in that direction. In his view, the culture was balanced between academics and sport, not tennis-forward and not built to develop professional players. He also said, he “never thought I’d come back here, just because of the trajectory,” and he admitted he did not see events unfolding this way.

He does not recommend that anyone copy his decisions. He felt more pressure and stress because of the uncertainty tied to the transfer portal than he felt from Indiana’s internal standards. 

Each set he played influenced his future. His results could affect where he might transfer. They could also affect the financial support he could receive at a new destination.

The Indiana coaching staff allowed him to continue competing. They hoped that regular contact, patience, and more match play would help him reconsider. Wurtzman hoped Landau would stay in Bloomington. That optimism did not last. When the season ended, Landau gave Duke his commitment.

“It hurt,” Wurtzman said. “Definitely needed a few days off to let that settle in.”

Landau believed Duke made sense. He viewed it as a national brand with resources, strong funding, and high-level facilities. His parents wanted him at a school with academic prestige. 

Duke satisfied that requirement. He moved to North Carolina in June and began training. For about three-and-a-half months, he thought he was playing the best tennis of his life. He said he had a “great time” with the players, and he enjoyed the intense, militaristic coaching methods he received.

Everything changed in late September after an injury. His momentum stopped. His status shifted. “When you’re winning, you’re the guy,” Landau said. “You’re getting introduced to everybody. You’re the showpiece. And when you’re injured and you’re not doing what they expect, it’s sort of the opposite.”

Even before the injury, he sensed discomfort. Duke never felt like a natural fit. It was a cultural adjustment that never settled. He communicated more with Indiana teammates than with his new colleagues at Duke. He followed Indiana’s results with more interest than his own program. He admitted the strange emotional divide.

The final months were difficult. The injury isolated him. His performance dipped. His confidence eroded. By the end of his time at Duke, he said he felt broke, both in spirit and in financial terms. The strong start had evaporated, and he no longer saw the program as a match for his goals.

Duke nearly pushed Sam Landau to the breaking point

A parent of one of his Duke teammates told Sam and the other transfers that they were not welcome. That stuck with him. He felt like a hired piece, brought in to “pad donors’ pockets,” not a real member of a team. By the middle of the fall, only weeks after his injury, he knew he had made a mistake and regretted leaving Indiana.

Financial frustration followed. Landau did not choose Duke strictly for NIL support, but he admitted that it was a deciding factor when comparing the Blue Devils to other finalists. 

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Duke outlined a plan through text messages and emails: 50% of his support would come from an athletic scholarship and 50% from NIL funds. The package promised a full ride at a top national program. Duke told him half the roster would receive payment in the fall and the other half in the spring.

On Duke’s first trip, Landau learned his agreement would not be honored. He was still injured, and the announcement surprised him.

“I had still been injured at that point, and it was kind of a surprise,” Landau said. “Obviously I wasn’t having a great time at that point anyways. But I’m paying to play for a school that I didn’t really care for.” He lost money, and he nearly lost his connection to tennis.

If he could speak to the version of himself who transferred in June 2024, he would begin with value. He has questioned his purpose for years. Why push in tennis? Why sacrifice if he does not turn professional? Even now, he weighs those thoughts.

After a difficult year, he has more clarity. He loves tennis. He loves competing. He values working with teammates toward a single goal. Duke threatened the foundation. “I think I almost lost that at Duke,” Landau said. “I almost honestly quit, and then I would have tried to finish my degree in one more year and then maybe play a grad year somewhere. But I would have quit, and then probably would have hated myself for that.”

He feared transferring again, because leaving Indiana once felt like failure. “I just felt like it was a failure,” Landau said. 

Now wearing Indiana gear again, he intends to rebuild confidence and thrive in tennis again.