“‘Who’s this player? Do I like him? Why do I like him?’, that’s what UTS is about” – Mouratoglou after 2024 Grand Final
The UTS founder speaks about the UTS after the success of the Grand Final in London
Alex de Minaur – UTS Grand Final London 2024 © UTS
Patrick Mouratoglou, the founder and chairman of UTS, thinks that the 2024 Grand Final in London allowed his concept of new tennis to be expressed fully. The Frenchman shared his thoughts in an interview from the US where he is coaching Naomi Osaka as they prepare for the new season.
Patrick, for the first time you could not attend a UTS event. You missed the UTS Grand Final in London because you are preparing the 2025 season with your player Naomi Osaka on the West Coast. What are your takeaways from this experience?
Patrick Mouratoglou: Yes, in a way it’s sad for me because I always love to attend, but it was an opportunity to live the UTS experience in a different way, through a screen ; it’s also what it’s designed for. And it was yet a great experience. I don’t have usually a lot of time to watch the UTS matches on a device. All the corrections we can do between each event, I see them live. And I only watch the replay afterwards. I think this experience was useful for me to get into the user’s experience live.
What I could feel was that it was a great event again, we still progress every time and the great thing is I also feel that people are more and more excited about UTS. All the feedback that I have go in the same direction. Just today, someone from Naomi’s team told me : « one year ago, one out of ten of my friends, one was watching UTS, now it’s five. » I see also the stadiums. We were at the London Excel in 2023 with 3,000 seats. And this year, we were sold out two months before the event in a stadium with 5,500 seats at the Copper Box Arena and with two sessions — day and night.
One reason for that : the show is amazing, because the players are doing a great job. I think it’s incredibly exciting to watch UTS because the game never stops. It’s exactly what we wanted it to be, something that is both emotional but super intense, super fast, and super social media friendly.
So what UTS looks like behind a screen?
Patrick Mouratoglou: I really enjoyed it. Like crazy. I would definitely be a fan of UTS if I was not behind it. What’s happening on the court is amazing. What you have is not classical tennis but it’s still an incredible competition. On the screen, that was so obvious, so clear. I loved the close images on the face of the players because we could feel how physically demanding it was. Not one second on the screen, watching UTS, you think, « Oh, they’re not playing full ». Not one second. That’s what we want from the sport. We are a real tournament where players are giving their all. They want to win, they get pissed when they don’t, they have emotions, they’re suffering physically, they want it badly. Yes it is super entertaining.
There’s fun, there’s music, there’s craziness, there’s all those things that you don’t have in the classical tennis but, on the other hand, you also have an incredible competition.
I also could feel that the atmosphere in the stadium was incredible. It’s something that I’d like to feel more in the future. It’s important for the viewers on screen that the experience is as close as possible to the one in stadium. We want to improve that permanently but overall, the whole team from A to Z did an amazing job. Baptiste (Kern) and Emilien (Bordet) did a great job setting up the whole organisation for the event to take place, from building the courts, taking care of the live broadcast, the sponsors, everything, and Jeremy (Chardy) with the players of course. Same with the referees : the new seat stand for the chair umpire works so well. The social media team is unbelievable. I enjoyed the whole posts every day. The commentators (Jenny Drummond and Max Whittle) did a great job. They are telling the story of UTS very naturally. I think the whole team did incredible, I’m so proud. It’s so natural now. Of course it’s a lot of stress, a huge amount of work every time but now it’s on tracks and we can focus only on improving everything.
We are a real tournament where players are giving their all. They want to win, they get pissed when they don’t, they have emotions, they’re suffering physically, they want it badly
Once again, with that UTS, we could see what’s happening behind the scenes between the players. Famously now with a sort of bromance between Humbert and Kokkinakis. What’s the point, in your opinion, in showing to the audience how players really are when they don’t play on court?
Patrick Mouratoglou: The point is to tell the story, to understand them better, and to bring more authenticity, to be closer to them. That’s the experience people want to live. They want to be in the car when the drivers are on the track, so the closer we get to them, the more we see behind the scenes, the more we feel we are inside the action. I’m grateful because the players understand how important that is, not only for UTS but also for them, to be more accessible for the fans and to be more themselves because, at the end of the day, what are people interested about : « Who’s this player? Do I like him? How can I like him? What do I like in him? » And the only way is to show your real self in real situations.
I think they’re playing the game really well. It’s great for UTS, it’s great for the fans but it’s also great for them. I love, for example, feeling I can be in the locker room with them. I love the match debriefing, right after, not in the classical way but in the locker room or walking to the locker. It’s completely natural. You see what they would tell their coach after the match. I love the discussions during the match at the changeover. Not the one you have with the visible microphone. The ones that a player has naturally with his coach. When you love the sport, you love those moments.
Alex de Minaur won the 2024 UTS London by Builder.ai edition… How do you assess his performance as a tennis pundit?
Patrick Mouratoglou: It’s interesting to see that the players who are best at UTS are the most consistent players. They’re the ones that are physically the best in terms of cardio in terms of ability to bring balls back, counterpunchers most of the time, but it’s mostly incredibly consistent players. When we speak about Alex de Minaur, that’s what he is. The guy doesn’t miss a shot. To put him out of position is so difficult. But he’s not a pusher at all, he’s aggressive and he works the opponent, he destroys him physically because of his presence, because of the fact that there are no easy points. All that because he’s physically a beast.
With one serve, no free points, only 15 seconds between points, this is really demanding. If you look at the most successful players of UTS, the No.1 is Andrey Rublev. But in this edition, he was far from his usual level physically and he suffered so much on that part that he couldn’t win it. Alex looked like he was in such a great shape, physically, he looked didn’t look tired. Holger (Rune) in the final was also really suffering with those crazy demanding long rallies, in which he was struggling to hit winners. De Minaur’s number one weapon is there.
It’s great for Alex to be in such a great shape because he got injured in Wimbledon. It took him a few months to get back in shape. Knowing that he’s an Australian and the Australian Open is next door, very soon, it’s great for him to be able to get close to his best shape. At the moment, he looks so solid. Even though Holger was impressive, we couldn’t feel how physically Holger would be able to win that match. Too demanding and it costs him too much effort.
It was the first time that we had eight players being experienced UTS players in the field. Did you notice any change in terms of game style or performance management?
Patrick Mouratoglou: A player who plays UTS for the first time is really struggling, because it’s so different. They get to feel the subtilities of the game, they need to know when to use the [bonus] card, they need to understand how to use the momentum. It takes time. And when the players are experienced, we are able to go really quickly into great tennis. So yes, I noticed during the Grand Final that players were immediately immersed in UTS from the very first second.
What might 2025 look like for UTS?
Patrick Mouratoglou: Amazing. First of all we continue to develop worldwide. We’ve got a date in February in Guadalajara in Mexico, so Latin America for the first time. Second date for the first semester will be in Nimes in France, in April. I’m happy to see UTS there and I don’t need to explain why. We’re both in France and in the South of France, to a decent drive from the Academy. Nimes is an amazing city. We will play in an incredible old stadium that has so much history. It’s an incredible success, popular success. On Saturday, we probably gonna more than 10,000 spectators which is really huge. I really cannot wait. To play in that city is gonna be unreal. We’re working hard and we get very close to making a deal in Asia for second semester. We might be back in the USA and, of course, we’ll have our Grand Final.
