Patrick Mouratoglou knows a thing or two about winning: He coached Serena Williams for a decade and, more recently, has been working with Simona Halep and Holger Rune. But what’s the X factor that separates a champion from a mere player with talent? We asked him about that—and about why he set out to shake up the sport with his Ultimate Tennis Showdown tour, which takes place this weekend in LA.
Vogue: For someone at your level as a coach, I’d imagine that anyone that you see knows how to play tennis quite well—but I would also imagine that not all of those people will be champions. Is there a certain thing you look for, something other than serves and forehands?
Patrick Mouratoglou: Yeah—there are a few elements that are a common denominator among all the champions. First, they have a different mindset in terms of the way they process things. They have a deep belief in themselves—most players will say that they want to be number one in the world, but not many believe it, really. Most of them wish; a few of them know.
How can you tell that they know?
It’s a very good question—that’s one of the very difficult things: to see which ones are bluffing and which ones are not. Most of the time, the ones who are bluffing don’t even know they are. They think they believe, but when they are facing certain circumstances, you’ll see that they don’t really believe. When they believe, they are not stopped by anything. Of course they don’t win all the time, but they don’t lose because of not enough belief—never. They don’t respect anyone. When I say respect: Of course they respect people, but they don’t respect the opponent being better than them—never, whoever they play.
I’ve been working with Holger Rune. When I started with him in October, he was number 30 in the world and was going through a tough period—he had maybe lost six times in a row in the first round. And when we started, he had three tournaments to play in a row, and he told me, “Okay—I want to win all three.” Which made no sense for a guy of that ranking, but he really believed it. And actually, he won the first one, played in the final of the second one, and won the third one, beating both [Carlos] Alcaraz and [Novak] Djokovic. He believed—otherwise, there’s no chance he would do it.
So that’s the first thing we say: the belief. The second is competitiveness. Some guys are just good at winning. I’ve seen it many times: You look at the match and you think, Wow, the other guy is better, but they find a way to win. Of course, you can work on developing this—but when they have this naturally inside themselves, it’s a big difference.
Someone like Rafael Nadal comes to mind—the way he sometimes seems less about winning and more about simply refusing to lose.
Yes—when you believe in yourself so much, you refuse to lose. When you don’t really believe and you respect your opponent too much, you accept losing. The immense majority of the players accept losing, sometimes—but the champions, they never accept it. I remember a match between Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at Wimbledon. Murray’s two sets to love up, then Tsonga comes back to tie it, two sets all. And Murray wins the first game of the fifth, which was his service game, so nothing special—and then he turns to his box, and you can read his lips, he’s saying to the box, “There is no way I’m going to lose this match.” He won that fifth set 6-2 and won that match. Working with Serena taught me a lot about this. She literally refused to lose. This mindset of the big champions makes such a big difference—they just find ways to win.
The third thing is physical ability. I scouted Coco Gauff when she was 10 years old and brought her to my tennis academy. The athleticism she had at 10 was different. It’s a huge advantage. Of course, the biggest champions have all three. You look at Novak Djokovic: physical ability, incredible belief in himself, and the competitiveness from another level, just unbelievable. When he came to the tour, there were two guys—Nadal and Roger [Federer]—who were winning absolutely everything. All the top 10 players were saying it was impossible to win a Grand Slam because of those two guys, and in came Djokovic, who was 19 or 20, and he said, “I’m going to beat those two guys—I’m going to be number one.” And everybody laughed. I remember journalists writing articles saying, “Who’s this guy? He’s so cocky.” And he answered them. Many years later, he said, “I’m not cocky—I just believe in myself.”
Do you think that Carlos Alcaraz beating him in Wimbledon is a changing of the guard? Is it something that’s going to get into Djokovic’s head, or just a match he lost?
Alcaraz has two Grand Slams right now, and he’s 20 years old. At 20, Novak or Roger were far from winning a Grand Slam. I think it’s the start of a new rivalry. It’s not going to last 10 years because of Novak’s age, but it’s going to last a few years—and it’s not good news for Novak, because before that match he was in an ideal position to establish an historic Grand Slam-winning record—maybe 28, maybe 30, who knows? If Novak would’ve won that match, that would’ve been two matches in a row when he beats Carlos, and he would have a real edge on him. But now he doesn’t have any edge on him. I’m not saying Carlos is going to beat him all the time, but he is going to win some Grand Slams that Novak could’ve won—so the record will not be the same.
Let’s talk about Ultimate Tennis Showdown. What gave you the idea to start UTS? Are you trying to shake up the world of tennis, or somehow point the way forward to a new way of playing, or is this just something to have fun?
What pushed me to do it is the demographics of tennis. The average age of a tennis fan is 61 years old. For golf, it’s 65—the two oldest sports fan bases in the world, and every year it’s one year older—and it’s been this way for more than 20 years. Why? I think it’s important to understand the reasons, because this is why we do UTS. The world has changed—the way people consume has completely changed since the advent of social media, streaming platforms, video games. The format of tennis was created in the 19th century, and it has never changed—it doesn’t fit the way the world is now. And we love tennis—I’m from that tennis base. I’m 53, not 61, but I fell in love with tennis in the ’70s, like the fan base. But if we continue like that, it’s not going to work.
So in 2020, during the pandemic, I got a team together and I said, “Imagine that we created tennis today—what would it look like, knowing what we know about how people consume?” And we created a new format, with the goal to build a tour like the ATP tour—not to compete with them, but to bring new fans on board. And we’ve been lucky to have had, in our first four competitions, seven out of the 10 best players in the world, among other great players. Our idea is to bring the most exciting players—people like Gael Monfils, Nick Kyrgios, Frances Tiafoe—and put them in a short format where the match lasts 45 minutes, max: four quarters of eight minutes, and a sudden death if necessary at the end. It’s very dynamic, with no downtime, but with a DJ between points and a crowd that is able to connect with the players during the match—even if that means shouting during the points. It’s a completely different experience. We’re in LA now, and then we ll go to Frankfurt, to Asia, and to the Middle East.
Has anybody from the ATP or the WTA or from any of tennis’s other governing bodies tried to talk to you or discourage you from doing this?
Not at all. I think the governing bodies are completely aware of the situation with the fan base, and I don’t think they really can change much about the way tennis is, because the fan base is extremely conservative and extremely traditional, and any time you want to change something, they get really angry. So I think it’s best to have two different tours—one for traditional tennis fans, and one to bring new fans on board. I think the ATP and WTA want to see what that looks like, but maybe in the future we can partner with them.
I noticed on the UTS website something about a “lightened code of conduct.” Which means what—you can trash talk to your opponent?
We want the crowd to connect with the players and we want the players to connect with the crowd to share emotions—and not only positive emotions. We don’t want anybody insulting anyone or doing anything dangerous—this is banned—but anything else: trash talking, breaking your racket, whatever. You are responsible for what you do; it’s your image. And to be honest, I think the more you express your emotions, the more people love you, because they connect with you. But if they hate you, that’s completely fine.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
