Patrick Mouratoglou to provide live tennis with Ultimate Tennis Showdown
 

Patrick Mouratoglou, the coach of Serena Williams, has announced a planned Ultimate Tennis Showdown league which will stream live matches between players without spectators at his academy starting next month.

The brainchild of Mouratoglou and Alex Popyrin says it aims to create a new way to consume tennis in the absence of the WTA and ATP Tours, both suspended until at least mid-July because of coronavirus.

Fans worldwide will be able to interact with the players and listen to live conversations as on-court or video coaching will take place at the Mouratoglou Academy, located near the French Riviera.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_ISWbAn...ource=ig_embed

French president Emmanuel Macron this week banned large public events in the country until July 11 but the league says it will abide by social distancing requirements to protect players and coaches, with minimal on-site staff.

Ten matches are scheduled to be held every weekend for five weeks, starting from May 16.

“The UTS is simply meant to be an alternative to what already exists,” Mouratoglou said.

“It is a platform created to showcase the incredible talent, athleticism and personalities of the wide range of tennis players.

“It offers a new and innovative approach, targeting a younger tennis audience and proposes a different way to distribute the money among the players.

“The UTS defines itself as a player-centric league, and therefore features a system focusing on the redistribution of income among the players. This system could be particularly beneficial for lower-ranked players.”

World number 10 David Goffin and Alexei Popyrin, the son of co-founder Alex, have been announced as the first match competitors.

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/spo...nnis-showdown/

https://sports.yahoo.com/patrick-mou...225941321.html

What happens if Covid 19 gets far
Worse by May /July.

Will all this be cancelled?

no, they will adapt according to measures/regulations

they already have, video on court coaching, no audience just for tv and YouTube livestream viewers

no handshakes pre, after matches

no dressing room thing, so also here players need to show up to that venue in their sports wear immediately

Thats sounds Good
I hope it goes Live on EuroSportHD
or UK live TV.

yes it is intended for the TV viewers mainly, but of course there'll be YouTube streams too (given how popular live chats usually are there at normal tournaments)


yes EurosportHD i can see being main broadcaster for this

today the big kick off for this, on Eurosport (HD)

it is CET times btw

so in 10 minutes from now, the first match Lucas Pouille vs Elliot Benchetrit

#TennisIsBack


the delay can be easily explained, was originally scheduled for last month, but last minute details needed to be submitted to ATP/WTA federations and also with WHO (if regulations were all correct, according to corona rules)

the episode of Tennis Talk is tomorrow, to chat about the kick off of UTS



and Mouratoglou himself, some words on the UTS, ''Tennis about to ReInvent itself''

https://utslive.tv/

it has kicked off, you can follow everything on this event at this site