Ahead of the French Open, Patrick Mouratoglou talks about Serena, champion mindset, and his wacky new vision for tennis.
The French Open kicks off this week with Serena Williams on her quest for her 24th Grand Slam.
If she wins the tournament, she’ll tie Margaret Court’s record for most singles titles of all time—if her GOAT status were up for debate (it’s, uh, not), a win at Roland Garros would seal it.
Serena’s clay season has looked a little rocky, though, with early exits from clay court tournaments in Italy over the past few. In the lead-up to the Slam, she’s been grinding hard with her coach of the past 10 years, Patrick Mouratoglou.
Mouratoglou has always been a bit of an iconoclast.
Back in 1996, he founded Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, while he was still in his 20s, defying all the conventional coaching wisdom of the day—tennis academies were less common than they are today, and they were all run by seasoned former pros. Now his tennis academy is one of the most respected in the world. In addition to coaching arguably the greatest player in the game—since signing on with Mouratoglou, Serena has won 10 Slams—he also shepherds up-and-coming stars like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Coco Gauff.
These days, the man who disrupted 30 years of coaching has a new bone to pick with the sport. Its fans are too old and too conservative, he argues. To turn the tides against creeping irrelevance, he hosts a tournament called Ultimate Tennis Showdown at his academy in the South of France. And the UTS is, frankly, pretty weird. Instead of three or five sets, there are four 10-minute quarters, like in high school basketball. Coaches are allowed to communicate with their players (a no-no on tour), while players get special cards that impose rules or penalties on their opponent—i.e., they lose a first serve or need to win the next point in three shots. “During a tennis match, the ball is not in play more than 80% of the time,” Mouratoglou points out. UTS is designed to make tennis more action-packed and fun to watch for a younger generation.
The tournament wrapped early last week, so Mouratoglou pivoted back to coaching. In between UTS and drill sessions with Serena, he talked to GQ about his career, the importance of self-esteem, and why tennis fans are too damn old.
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Source: USA Today
