Serena Williams‘ former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown(UTS) faces a major blow with the recent withdrawal of Dominic Thiem (“Thieminho”) and Holger Rune (“The Viking”). Both of them have cited their illness to be the real cause of their withdrawal. A few hours back, Gael Monfils (“La Monf”) also got disqualified from the exhibition tournament due to an incident in the locker room.

UTS, described as ‘Tennis like never before’ was scheduled from February 9-11 at the Telenor Arena in Oslo. This tournament runs in a different way than that of any regular ATP tournament. 

Holger Rune loves representing the Nordic people

Here’s what Rune and Thiem said about their recent withdrawal from the UTS. Dominic Thiem said, “Unfortunately I am suffering from food poisoning today and despite all my efforts, I am just unable to step on court,”. “I loved the atmosphere here in Oslo and the excitement of UTS. I am really sorry for the fans and look forward to seeing you soon on the UTS Tour.”

On the other hand, Holger Rune added, “Hi guys. I am really sorry I cannot continue my matches in Oslo, I have not been feeling well the last days. And, I will be unable to perform at a satisfying level tonight. I really enjoyed being here and I gave it my best yesterday. It’s something very special to play for the Nordic people. I love the energy you bring.”

From a different format and rules to using nicknames of players, this tournament comes up with a lot of new things in tennis. It was introduced in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this tournament players compete in quarters of 8 minutes instead of games and sets. It uses a modified scoring format and includes power-up cards that can affect the amount of points a player can achieve during a quarter. Loud music is often played in between points and players can have only one serve. They’re not allowed to take any medical timeouts during the match.

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Talking more about the UTS, the total allotted prize money for this event is around $1,665,000. Here. players can even take a coaching timeout once per set and there are no warnings or penalties for the players on the court. As a result, Gael Monfils’ disqualification has resulted in a major surprise among the fans.

“No malice intended” UTS releases an official statement on Monfils’ disqualification

The 37-year-old French got into a heated argument even during the UTS Grand Final in London last time because of his out-of-the-books request for a medical timeout in the UTS. This time it was because of “a code of conduct violation“. Here is what the tournament officials had to say, “Yesterday a playful exchange in the locker room between Gael Monfils. And, the tournament supervisor Stephane Apostolou resulted in a minor injury to the supervisor.“

They further added, “UTS is 100 per cent satisfied that there was no malice intended from Gael but because there was an injury sustained by an official, however minor, we felt there was no alternative but to disqualify Gael.” However, they have assured that Monfils has accepted the disqualification and they hope to see him back next time.

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