Robert Herman Lansdorp (November 12, 1938 – September 16, 2024) was a Dutch-American tennis coach known for working with top-ranked players including Tracy Austin, Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, and Maria Sharapova. Lansdorp was regarded as an expert on groundstrokes, advocating a consistently powerful and flat hitting technique commonly referred to in the tennis world as the "Lansdorp Forehand".[1]
Lansdorp received the USTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and was honored as a Team USA Coaching Legend along with Nick Bollettieri, Jerry Baskin and Jack Sharpe at the inaugural 2013 Team USA Coaching Legend reception in Indian Wells, California.[2][4]
In 2004, Lansdorp said: "I’ve never received anything from one player. Not even a $500 gift. They’re all multi-millionaires but I’ve never received one thing. And I’m telling you, if Maria doesn’t put a Mercedes convertible in my driveway, I’m going to shoot myself."[6]
In 2013, he publicly criticized the United States Tennis Association's Player Development program under General Manager Patrick McEnroe, saying the 2012 mandate requiring players under the age of ten to compete on miniature courts with lightweight green-dot balls is "wrong for the very talented kids." Sharapova, Monica Seles, and the Williams sisters, he noted, were very competitive with standard courts and equipment from age 7.[7]
