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Patrick Mouratoglou will relaunch the UTS in 2023, an event launched almost three years ago and put on hold this season. With four events from summer to the end of autumn, the Frenchman wants to give credibility to his baby, which he believes in like a rock, halfway between show and competition. A daring and delicate bet with a well-defined target in mind: the young public.
Patrick Mouratoglou does not give up. In 2023, his UTS will be back. THE UTS? The Ultimate Tennis Showdown. His event had taken a break in 2022, “because we were in a fundraising period”, he explains. But because he rejects the term exhibition and aims to make his event a real competition, if possible a fixture in the long-term calendar, Holger Rune’s current coach wants to step up a gear next year by making the UTS a kind of championship spread over several dates.
After a first stage in North America in July after Wimbledon, then another in Europe after the US Open, the last two events will be held at the end of November and beginning of December in the Middle East. “Four editions is not a lot, but it is still four editions with a world champion at the end of these four editions, a UTS world champion. It will be the first one”, says Patrick Mouratoglou.
THE TENNIS FANBASE IS AGING. AND ALL THE STATISTICS SHOW IT
“World champion”, “year-round league”, “competition”, the words of its designer are chosen to distance the UTS from any vision of an exhibition. But with its shorter and faster format, its coaching, its downtime, its atmosphere, the UTS is closer to what we understand as “exhibition” than to traditional tournaments. So, “exhibition” or “real competition”, the UTS? Both, according to the way the French technician sees it, who wants both a 5-star cast (which he can’t reveal yet) and a lot of show.
“The typical UTS player is Nick Kyrgios,” he tells us. Players who have a demeanor and a look, a way of speaking that young people feel close to. And if we want to reach out to young people, we have to do it through the media we use. And obviously with the stars that these people can potentially have as heroes. So yes, Nick is indeed the perfect character for UTS, but he’s not the only one. I’m looking forward to revealing this set, which I’m very, very proud of.”
Youth. The word is out. Ultimately, the goal of the concept that Patrick Mouratoglou presents as “innovative” and “disruptive” is to rejuvenate the average tennis spectator. “It is really the bet of the UTS, to manage to convince the under 40s that tennis is an exciting sport, because we realized that there was a desertion of this part of the population, because of the change of consumption mode for this kind of product, he believes. Today, young people play tennis, but follow it very little if at all throughout the year. The tennis fanbase is aging. And that’s what all the statistics show.” So the target is “millennials” and “Generation Z.”
WE HAVE NO AMBITION TO TAKE 50% OF ATP’S PLACE
In this respect, Mouratoglou is rather in phase with the ATP leaders, who have been obsessed with rejuvenation for several years, even if they are groping their way forward when the Frenchman wants to go fast and strong. He therefore wishes to move forward alongside the governing body rather than confronting it: “I think that having two leagues, the traditional ones that are the ATP, the WTA, the Grand Slams of tennis, which appeal to all the historical fans of this sport, of which I am also a part, and to have alongside that a league that is much more modern and much more directed by young people, it can be a winning cocktail. That’s the goal.”
His program, in particular, has been thought of this way, because the UTS will have to find its place in a calendar that the players already denounce as overloaded, even if, paradoxically, they rarely shy away from off-season exhibitions as shown by the Diriyah Cup in Saudi Arabia in December. But here too, Mouratoglou wants to reassure.
“We have no ambition at all to take 50% of the place of the ATP, says the coach. The ATP, the WTA, the Grand Slam remain obviously the historical and main leagues of tennis. But there are a number of weeks during the year that are now occupied either by ATP 250s or sometimes by exhibitions or other events like that. The players that we’re talking to, they’re players that don’t usually play ATP 250s, so we’re not going to take players away from them. There’s space on those weeks. The idea is to replace those exhibition weeks with real competition weeks with a real world championship and intersperse with the ATP calendar.”
TIGHTROPE ACT
But can you really dust off without scratching the surface? Can we make an event that is by definition a hybrid in the current landscape, since it is a real sporting event in terms of content but with the form of an exhibition and show? Attract young people away from tennis while keeping the “traditionalists” of the tennis church?
The interested party is convinced: “I think that the two can coexist. It’s in the interest of the whole tennis industry to go after these young people who today are more on social networks, on streaming platforms than on sports in general. If we can convince these two populations at once, we’ll give a lot of fresh air to this sport, which will go back for another century or more.”
The danger, however, in trying to please everyone, is to satisfy no one. It’s a risky gamble, which is similar to a tightrope act. But it is above all the first public, this famous “generation Z”, that its creator seeks to capture. The launch of the UTS had rather seduced on the form, without installing the appointment as a real competition. In 2023, with this model of league, it will undoubtedly be the moment of truth for Patrick Mouratoglou’s baby.
