Ruud, Fritz, Shelton, De Minaur, Rune snub clay court openers for UTS tournament in Nimes

The Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) is set to make a debut in France this year. The tournament is one of the newest form of tennis and has been around for a while and starts on April 4

As per the latest report, the competition is set to make its debut in France this year and will be played at the iconic Arènes de Nîmes. Some of the top players in the games including veteran French tennis player Gael Monfils and Russia’s Andrey Rublev will clash at the iconic venue on April 04 and 05. The event will feature quarterfinals, semifinals and final which will take place on Sunday.

Fritz, Ruud, Rublev, De Minaur, Shelton, Rune, Humbert & Monfils in all are involved who are four top ten players and seven top 20 players. Usually they would play one of the assorted clay tournaments which is why those line-ups are fairly poor.

The competition in France will be one of the events of the UTS this year as it is set to expand to different continents with one event already took place in Guadalajara, Mexico earlier this year. The UTS is famous for its unique rules where the match is divided into eight-minute quarters and just 15 second between the points. There is also no option of second serve and players are eligible to receive unlimited coaching from the sidelines.

Famous tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who is the founder of the UTS, was quoted in a report previously where he defended the newer format of the competition and believed that such event will give players a unique opportunity to play at the highest level in high-intensity encounters.

“First they [players] love to play it [this event],” said Mouratoglou back in February last year. “It’s different from what they are used to playing and they really enjoy it. It’s an incredible pleasure for them. They play with always stadiums that are packed with an extremely involved crowd and that’s what players love the most. Once again, they chose this job because first they love the game but also because they love sharing with a crowd. So this is the first reason why they love so much UTS. And the second I would say that some players have explained that UTS has helped their overall game.”