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<\/p>\nTennis has seen a surge in popularity over the past few years, with a number of players becoming global household names. <\/p>\n
On the men\u2019s side, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have become two of the most recognisable faces on tour, while Alexandra Eala has brought a new wave of Filipino fans into the sport.<\/p>\n
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Yet despite tennis enjoying more visibility than ever, Patrick Mouratoglou still harbours concerns about where things are headed.<\/p>\n
Patrick Mouratoglou voices concern over tennis losing touch with younger fans<\/p>\n
Photo by William WEST \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
In an interview with Eurosport France, Mouratoglou shared his worries about where tennis is heading.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cYoung people don\u2019t watch tennis, all the studies have shown that. It\u2019s essential to get them involved in the sport if we want tennis to still be as popular in 30 or 40 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to take this opportunity to reiterate that I never said tennis was doing badly. Tennis is doing extremely well. There are huge crowds in the stadiums, the TV rights are enormous, the tennis business is booming. It\u2019s simply that the fanbase is getting older and it\u2019s not being renewed. That\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mouratoglou feels that if tennis doesn\u2019t find a way to connect with younger generations soon, it risks fading away.<\/p>\n
The UTS boss explained: \u201cTennis is incredibly popular with people of my generation who, basically, discovered tennis in the 70s and 80s. The fanbase is huge, older, but it has money. So the sponsors are there, the TV rights too. Everything\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, if we project ourselves 20, 30 or 40 years into the future, this fanbase will no longer exist,\u201d he added. \u201cSo there won\u2019t be any more tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mouratoglou launched UTS back in {{YEAR_1}} as part of an effort to bring young fans into tennis by offering a format with faster rules compared to what they\u2019re used to seeing on tour.<\/p>\n
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The French coach isn\u2019t new to these kinds of conversations around youth engagement either \u2013 he brings plenty of experience from working closely with players like Holger Rune and Naomi Osaka.<\/p>\n
Patrick Mouratoglou calls tennis a \u2018relic of the past\u2019<\/p>\n
Mouratoglou hasn\u2019t held back in criticising traditional tennis, pointing to its resistance to change and suggesting even some players aren\u2019t happy with how things stand.<\/p>\n
In the same interview, the Greek coach explained: \u201cTennis is a relic of the past. It was created before 1900, and the format has remained virtually unchanged since, if at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumption patterns have completely shifted. Social media, streaming platforms, video games\u2026 people under 30 don\u2019t consume content the way they used to.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mouratoglou said that many professional players have stopped watching full matches altogether because they\u2019re too long.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I ask them, 100% tell me they don\u2019t watch matches anymore. Too long. They watch highlights. The product isn\u2019t suitable. It\u2019s suited to us, to me. Not to those under 30.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UTS\u2019 format consists of four quarters which do not go any longer than eight minutes in length.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis has seen a surge in popularity over the past few years, with a number of players becoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[69099,64,63,962,754,286421,1520,85,747,53449],"class_list":{"0":"post-585019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-alexandra-eala","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","12":"tag-jannik-sinner","13":"tag-mouratoglou","14":"tag-patrick-mouratoglou","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tennis","17":"tag-uts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}