Biot (France) (AFP)

It's good old rain that disrupted, on Saturday in Sophia Antipolis, the debut of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS), the very innovative tournament formula imagined by coach Patrick Mouratoglou to attract a new, younger audience.

"We want the first round of UTS games to be perfect and that is why we cannot afford to stop and start the games over and over because of the rain," said Mouratoglou. UTS will therefore begin this Sunday, weather permitting.

Everything has been thought of to attract addicts to short formats and e-sport: matches taking place behind closed doors, the UTS experience must be experienced in all its splendor on the organization's website, with a subscription, with ultra-worked sound and visual clothing.

For the tennis enthusiast, the UTS is full of surprises, not necessarily in the best taste: matches divided into four 10-minute quarters for a total duration of one hour, sound effects that can occur at any time, including while the ball is in play, interaction of the players with the internet users via interviewers with side changes, interventionism of the coach during the match, use by the players of "cards" in front of "balancing" the matches by temporarily granting themselves an advantage (3 service balls or winning point triple account, for example), or by inflicting a handicap on the opponent (who can for example be deprived of a service ball).

- Ignoring traditions -

The competition spans five successive weekends with, to begin with, a championship phase during which the ten players meet. Then the first six of the classification integrate a final table: the first two directly in the semi-finals, the following four in quarters.

The formula is exempt from many elements that have made tennis one of the major sports in the world: the code of conduct, the public, the media, traditions, authorities and even certain rules, in particular in the manner of count the points.

The concept, whispered in Mouratoglou's ear by the father of the Australian player Alexei Popyrin, had been turning for some time in the mind of the French coach of Serena Williams. And the freezing of the professional circuit by the coronavirus pandemic allowed him to launch it by attracting a sacred plateau of players in need of matches.

For this first edition, the Austrian Dominic Thiem (3rd in the world), the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (6th), the Italian Matteo Berrettini (8th), the Belgian David Goffin (10th), the French Benoît Paire (22nd) ), Richard Gasquet (50th) and Lucas Pouille (58th), the Spaniard Feliciano Lopez (56th), the German Dustin Brown (239th) and therefore Popyrin (103rd). All were chosen by the organization for their talent, their personality, their style of play and their availability.

- Parallel league -

Friday, under the sun, they were able to test and assimilate - more or less easily - the funny new rules of the game. But on Saturday, heavy rain showered the French Riviera and seized the UTS war machine.

So the matches scheduled for this first day, between Pouille and Elliot Benchetrit (who will give way to Dominic Thiem from next weekend), as well as Brown-Paire, Gofin-Berrettini, Lopez-Popyrin and Tsitsipas-Gasquet, will be played Monday. Sunday's program is maintained as it is: Benchetrit-Popyrin, Brown-Berrettini, Lopez-Pouille, Gasquet-Goffin and Tsitsipas-Paire.

Mouratoglou hopes that the UTS will become a "league" parallel to the ATP circuit, but says he does not want to compete. But while doubt still hangs over the date of resumption of the traditional professional circuit, and in particular the US Open scheduled from August 24 to September 13, are already scheduled in the wake of this first edition of UTS 2 and UTS 3.

© 2020 AFP