Patrick Mouratoglou has been slammed for holding back players from playing at the Open 13 Provence by its tournament director, Jean-Francois Caujolle with the latest Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) set to take place in Oslo shortly.
According to Caujolle, Mouratoglou has only placed his interests at the forefront with players who could've headed to Marseille to potentially replace Jannik Sinner not being involved. These include Holger Rune, Casper Ruud, Andrey Rublev and Alex de Minaur who decided to play in the UTS instead in Oslo which takes place between February 9-11.
Despite Hubert Hurkacz, Grigor Dimitrov and Karen Khachanov playing in the Open 13 Provence, there are notable absentees with the tournament seeking out Alexander Zverev initially as a replacement. But this couldn't be done after Jannik Sinner withdrew.
Now Caujolle has accused Mouratoglou of putting himself first over players who could've been involved in an ATP 250 tournament this week.
"There is a UTS stage in Oslo, with certain players who could have come to the Open 13. And that offends me, yes. What is the interest of the promoter Mouratoglou? For me, he does not promote tennis. He promotes his own interests, that's all," he said to L'Equipe.