Fans come down to the front row near the conclusion of each match, hoping to get closer to their favourite tennis stars. At UTS it’s about the fans, and in tennis-crazed cities like Los Angeles and Frankfurt, where the tours don’t stop, top players are more than happy to share their passion with adoring fans.

At UTS the formula is simple. If the fans win, everybody wins!

“I think the crowd loves it, that’s quite obvious,” Patrick Mouratoglou said in an interview after a brilliant weekend wrapped up on Sunday with Andrey Rublev holding the Zeus Trophy aloft. “The atmosphere is incredible and very different from the usual atmosphere at a tennis match. That’s really the way we want it and I think – I don’t think, I know – the players also love it.

Mouratoglou has been pleasantly surprised to see his event sell-out in top markets like L.A. and Frankfurt, and he is looking forward to seeing more happy, smiling fans in Seoul, Korea in December, where the third UTS event of 2023 will take place.

“I think the fan experience is really, really good,” he said. “People are clapping, shouting, dancing, waving. They are into it fully. And you hear it. When you hear their voice, you know, they are totally into it.”

The secret formula? Great tennis, and a great fan experience

Mouratoglou says that the key to success is two-fold. First, it’s important to offer a line-up that makes die-hard fans salivate. He has done that from the start, offering fans the top players – and personalities – in the sport, such as Gael Monfils, Frances Tiafoe, Andrey Rublev and more.

Mouratoglou says the tennis is intense, and so is the celebration. UTS is a wild, no-holds-barred tennis event, truly tennis like you’ve never seen it, as the tagline says.

“You can have two players fighting like crazy on a court and hugging before entering the court because they’re all friends and fight like crazy,” he said. “So we had the combination of the two that we are looking forward to having: the incredible fight of the players to win and a super entertainment at the same time, an event. If it’s too much fight and not enough entertainment, that is classical tennis: we are exactly in the middle of that.”

Grow the name, grow the game…

Mouratoglou says that many people are buying tickets to see their favourite players, without really knowing too much about the UTS brand. In time, he believes the opposite can occur – fans trusting the brand, no matter what names are on the ticket.

“We know that a lot of people don’t know UTS yet, so they don’t know that they’re coming to UTS, but they know they want to see those guys playing and then they discover UTS and they come and they say, ‘Wow, that’s incredible. What is this?’” he said.

“One day UTS will be bigger than the names of the players and people will come to UTS. It’s making a lot of noise because it’s really special and the players are participating a lot into spreading all the information and the fun about UTS.”