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Exclusive: Patrick Mouratoglou reveals his ‘dream’ for the Ultimate Tennis Showdown


Patrick Mouratoglou has opened up about his ‘dream’ for the future of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS), as well as revealing his hope to work with the ATP in the future.

Mouratoglou founded UTS during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when the main ATP and WTA Tours were suspended, and it has gone from strength to strength since.

When we spoke to the Frenchman about what his motivation for creating this franchise was, Mouratoglou explained that he wanted to bring a different audience into the sport.

“So what happened was, it was Covid, everyone was at home in quarantine and the players aren’t playing,” said Patrick Mouratoglou. “I was thinking about this idea for a long time because like I said before, the fan base is ageing, and the fact that the people under 40 years old are not following tennis, they’re coming to the stadiums, but they’re not following tennis, that’s what all the studies show.”

He continued, “And I thought we have to do something, because this format, this tennis format, is amazing. I love it. For people my age, it’s perfect, because we don’t have the, we don’t consume that type of products the same way as the new generation. But for the new generation, it’s not going to work. I mean, all the figures show it, and it’s not a surprise, because they would not watch something that is very long, that’s very slow. I mean, whatever tennis is, because it doesn’t work in this new world, so I thought we’d have to do something.

“And when Covid hit, and suddenly all the players were available, I thought maybe that’s the moment to start it. And in eight weeks, we started from zero, like a white page like this, to writing down a concept that would take into consideration the way people consume. So we did it.”

Rather than following the traditional tennis format, Mouratoglou’s UTS has gone for a different approach with matches instead playing against a time limit.

Each match is split into four quarters that each last eight minutes, with players receiving a point for every quarter that they win and go to sudden death if it is tied after the allotted time.

The innovation does not end there, with there also being no second serves and no lets, all in Mouratoglou’s aim to speed up play for younger viewers.

UTS is constantly growing and just last week held its penultimate event of the year in Frankfurt, with American Ben Shelton taking home the title after beating Ugo Humbert in the final.

 

 

This all leads up to the Grand Final taking place in London once again, this time in a bigger venue at the Copper Box Arena that has played host to two of Great Britain’s Billie Jean Cup ties in recent years.

With everything seemingly heading in a positive direction for UTS at the moment, Mouratoglou has revealed his future goals for the event to take an even greater step up

“My dream is to have many more matches. Of course, I’m aware of the tennis schedule, I don’t want to create problems. A few tournament directors have complained, I think they’re completely wrong,” claimed Patrick Mouratoglou. “That’s my point of view, because you cannot complain that there is competition, you know, in which field in this world there is no competition?

“Competition is sane, and it’s great, you know, it makes everybody improve. So to complain that there is competition, for me, it’s a nonsense. It’s not all the tournament directors, it’s a few who do, but my goal is not to hurt tennis, my goal is to add something to tennis. So we have to find a way to make all these things work, but so far, we’re in the way to what the dream is.”

Although UTS has many differences to the ATP in terms of the way that it is played, Mouratoglou has admitted that he ‘would love’ to work alongside the main tour in the future.

“Do I want to be partner with ATP, I would love it. I mean, I opened the door from day one. I want the ATP to be part of it,” said Patrick Mouratoglou. “I think it’s also the role of the ATP to maintain this format, because the fans, the current fans, are fan of that format, but at the same time to think about the future and build the future of tennis that maybe will not be UTS, but at least we try something, because we know that tennis the way it is now is not going to be the future of tennis.

“All the figures show it, it’s not me saying that. What about fans that are 61 now and next year, they’re going to be 62 and then 63, in 20 years they’ll be 80 years old, average fans, because every year the fanbase gets older. If they were younger fans coming in, this wouldn’t be the case, but we have the same fan base since the 70’s and the 80’s.”

The coach of Naomi Osaka added, “It is the same one. Or again, the studies show it again, people get aggressive with me, saying, that’s my theory, it’s not my theory, if you read any of the studies that have been made, they all say the same.”

UTS 2024 will reach its climax in London between December 6th to 8th, featuring Andrey Rublev, Gael Monfils, Ben Shelton, Alex de Minaur, Alexander Bublik, Ugo Humbert and two wildcards yet to be announced.

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Matthew Johns, Tennishead Writer, is a professional tennis journalist with a specialist degree in Sports Journalism. He's a keen tennis player having represented his local club and University plus he's also a qualified tennis coach. Matthew has a deep knowledge of tennis especially the ATP Tour and thrives on breaking big tennis news stories for Tennishead.