Thiem joins Mouratoglou's
innovative new league in France
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[June 12, 2020]
MUMBAI (Reuters) - World number
three Dominic Thiem will be the fourth top-10 player from the men's
ATP Tour to join the field in the innovative new tennis league
starting in France on Saturday, organisers announced.
The Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS), co-owned by Patrick Mouratoglou,
the long-time coach of Serena Williams, will have Greek Stefanos
Tsitsipas, Italian Matteo Berrettini and David Goffin of Belgium,
joining six others to compete in a round-robin format over five
weeks.
Thiem, who has reached three Grand Slam finals, will, however, miss
the starting weekend of the tournament and play his opening match on
June 30, having committed to a charity event hosted by world No. 1
Novak Djokovic in the Balkans.
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Frenchman Elliot Benchetrit will be Thiem's replacement for the
opening two rounds of the tournament, which will be held without
fans at Mouratoglou's academy in Nice, and will be live-streamed on
subscription-based platform utslive.tv.
Mouratoglou teamed up with Alex Popyrin, the father of world number
103 Alexei, to create the league that he says will showcase "new
tennis".
"The first goal is to have people like it," Mouratoglou told
reporters on a video conference call on Thursday, adding that they
are targeting 50,000 subscribers for the first season. "A lot of
people are going to be against it, but that's okay."
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![](../images/061220pics/sports47.jpg)
Austria's Dominic Thiem in action during his match against Serbia's
Novak Djokovic REUTERS/Edgar Su
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Among the changes from the professional tour, the code of conduct
will be lenient on players' on-court behaviour while fans will also
be able to question them during changeovers as they watch a
livestream of matches.
Each match will have four 10-minute quarters, with a two-minute
break between them, and the player with most points will win the
quarter. The format will be like a tie-breaker in traditional tennis
with each player having two serves in a row.
In other innovations, coaches will be allowed one 30-second timeout
per quarter and fans will be able to hear the coach-player
conversation, which must be conducted in English.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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