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UTS returns this weekend; Pavlyuchenkova leads women’s field


Just two weeks after the inaugural Ultimate Tennis Showdown came to a close, the tournament returns for a second edition starting this Saturday. The match format remains unchanged but, with the impending return of the professional tours, this edition will last just two weekends instead of five, and there will be a women’s event this time around too.

The men’s event will see the return of six players from UTS1: Richard Gasquet, Feliciano Lopez, Alexei Popyrin, Benoit Paire, Conretin Moutet and Dustin Brown. For UTS2, instead of one big league, then men will be split into two groups of four, and rounding off those groups will be two UTS debutants, Grigor Dimitrov and Fernando Verdasco. The winners of each group will advance to the semi-finals where they will face off against two as-yet-to-be-announced top 20 players on the second weekend.

The women’s event will also take place over the second weekend and will be comprised of just four players: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Alize Cornet, Ons Jabeur and 13-year old Brenda Fruhvirtova from the Czech Republic. Rather than a round-robin, the women will enter straight into semi-final action on August 1st with the final the following day.

Patrick Mouratoglou, the tournament director and Serena Williams’ coach, has said, “As an advocate for women’s tennis, it was a priority for us to include women in the UTS story as soon as possible. Considering the time and logistic restrictions we faced in organizing UTS1, we couldn’t make it happen right from the start but following up with UTS2 without women was unthinkable. I’m looking forward to see them evolve in UTS’ format.”

UTS2 will be a four-day event, commencing on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th July, and then concluding on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd August.

 


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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.