Thiem joins Patrick Mouratoglou's new tournament

World number 3 Dominic Thiem will be the fourth ATP Top-10 player to join Patrick Mouratoglou's innovative tennis league, which starts this Saturday in France.

The Ultimate Tennis Showdown, created by Patrick Mouratoglou, the coach of Serena Williams, already has the presence of Stefanos Tsitsipas, Matteo Berrettini and David GoffinSix other players will be measured in a group stage over five weeks.

Thiem, who has reached three Grand Slam finals, will miss the opening weekend of the tournament and open his participation on June 30, as he will participate in the Adria Tour. organized by Novak Djokovic in the Balkans. The Frenchman Ellito Benchetrir will replace Thiem in the first two rounds of the tournament, which will be played without an audience at the Academy that Mouratoglou has in Nice and will be broadcast in streaming.

Mouratoglou, with the help of Alex Popyrin (father of tennis player Alexei Popyrin), has created this league in which he says that 'the new tennis' will be shown. “The first objective is that people like it,” Mouratoglou told journalists through a conference, while expecting 50,000 subscribers in this first edition. “A lot of people will be against it, but it sure will turn out well.”

Among the changes regarding the professional circuit, the code of conduct will be lenient with the behavior of tennis players on the court, while fans will be able to ask them questions during breaks in matches. Each game will have 10-minute quarters, with two minutes of rest between them, and the player who wins the most points will take the fourth. The format will be like a tie-break of traditional tennis in which each player will have two consecutive serves. Among other novelties, the coaches will have a port time of 30 seconds per room and the fans will be able to listen to the conversation between the tennis player and his coach, who must speak in English.