Why Ultimate Tennis Showdown isn't a revolution
Ultimate Tennis Showdown -- a tennis event with shorter matches, no code of conduct, fancy names, unconventional rules, and now a DJ as well -- was first unveiled to the world in June 2020.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they attack you. Then you win."
The next few words are not an attempt to find out who said the aforementioned quote, but Patrick Mouratoglou must have run his eye over the lines three years ago while acquiring the courage to set in motion the Ultimate Tennis Showdown.
In 2020, when COVID-19 brought the entire world to its knees, Mouratoglou voluntarily decided to lift tennis up. In his quest, he teamed up with businessman Alex Popyrin, father of Australian tennis player Alexei Popyrin, to launch the Ultimate Tennis Showdown or UTS.
Everybody around tennis overlooked Mouratoglou's long-held belief that the sport needed to be upgraded until mid-2020. Before it could entertain the fans, the event attracted some sharp words from members of the fraternity.
"June 13th will be remembered as the day that tennis was bastardized...," said The Times scribe Stuart Fraser.
June 13th will be remembered as the day that tennis was bastardised... twitter.com/UTShowdown/sta…
"Give me a break. What a joke… Unfortunately it's not even funny just a dumb one," remarked veteran Aussie Craig Gabriel.
@UTShowdown Give me a break. What a joke... Unfortunately its not even funny just a dumb one.
And the tournament has turned out to be somewhat similar.
With the event, Mouratoglou longed to inject emotions into the sport. A few days before the first edition of UTS, he said:
"One of the main issues with tennis is the lack of emotions. People watch sports for the same reason they would watch a movie. They want to feel emotions and the emotions come from the characters and the story. In a good movie, you have great characters that you like and dislike."
"You have the good and the villain. The story creates something that brings you emotion. In tennis, you don't have a story and you don't have the characters."
Mouratoglou coached Serena Williams for ten years and the 23-time Grand Slam winner remains the most revolutionary character who engraved arguably the greatest stories in the history books of the "white man's sport". So, her coach must surely be kidding when he says tennis was lacking in emotions until then!
If assigned to craft a 'Hero' for the sport, the Frenchman will undoubtedly fail to produce anything close to a Roger Federer. With all the finesse and charisma up his sleeve, the Swiss captivated even the person sitting farthest from the net.
The stands sang with every point Federer won and dropped tears whenever the great fell. And now, with the rise of teenage sensations like Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune, Mouratoglou won't be burdened the slightest in the future as well.
For a villain, nobody irks fans better than Novak Djokovic, and Daniil Medvedev, with his cheeky celebrations, is fit enough to continue the tradition for a few more years.
Mouratoglou further advocated for UTS in 2020 by arguing that tennis had failed to attract younger fans. He said:
"Ten years ago, the average age of a tennis fan was 51 years old. Today, it's 61. In the next ten years, it will be 71. Tennis is not able to renew its fan base. That's extremely scary for the future. In order to solve it, we need to reinvent tennis."
This year, the Australian Open hosted a record 902,312 fans. A total of 839,192 fans visited Melbourne Park for the main event along with 60,000 more during the qualifiers.
The French Open too recorded its highest numbers with 630,000 spectators packing the Roland Garros stands against last year's 613,000. Wimbledon is the latest to follow the upward trend with a record 532,651 guests gracing the event. Last year SW19 set a record of receiving 515,164 fans, the most in its 145-year history.
The rise in attendance at major events of the year is indicative of the sport making its mark on the younger generations and bringing newer sets of eyes to the stands, standing in direct contrast to what Mouratoglou maintains.
Ultimate Tennis Showdown: A race against time is not exciting
With all the uncustomary rules in place at the Ultimate Tennis Showdown, the requirement to outscore your opponent before the clock hits eight minutes remains at the core of everything.
A conventional tennis match is filled with small victories that are ultimately converted into a bigger triumph. A player starts by winning games -- rarely spanning more than 4 minutes -- then sets and eventually the match. A spectator is constantly drawn into the action as there is a small victory on the cards every couple of minutes. Hence, making the traditional way of tennis more gripping.
In comparison with a conventional setup, a spectator has to wait double the time to witness their favorite player enjoy a small feat at an Ultimate Tennis Showdown match. Patrick Mouratoglou might want to restructure the point system or even adopt the conventional for the Ultimate Tennis Showdown matches to make it more appealing to the fans.
If every word mentioned above is considered an attack on Mouratoglou, has he already won with his Ultimate Tennis Showdown? For the love of sport, let's hope not.