Ultimate Tennis Showdown will return for its season finale in London before Christmas.
Britain’s Jack Draper enjoyed the richest payday of his career in winning last year’s event – tennis’ answer to T20 cricket – and is tipped to compete once more.
The event took place at the ExCeL but will move to the Copper Box at the Olympic Park for the event on December 6-8 to meet additional demand.
There will a prize pot of in excess of £1.5million at the grand final with the winner potentially walking away with nearly £800,000.
Coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who has worked with the likes of Serena Williams and Stefanos Tsitsipas, said: “We’re not in general going to cities that have tennis, it’s easier to go to cities where they’ve not had tennis before so there’s the hunger for it.
“But there was no question about coming back to London and this is the other side of London from your more typical events: Wimbledon, Queen’s.”
Each match is played over four eight-minute quarters. The first to clinch three of those quarters is the winner or else a fifth sudden-death quarter is played — the first to win two points in that secures victory and £100,000.
There is only one first serve, the net is narrowed to encourage more shot making, a DJ is playing music throughout and players are encouraged to interact with fans, both good and bad.
Andrey Rublev is the only current qualifier for the grand final but Mouratoglou is hoping to lure Draper back and, having tried to get Andy Murray to play, is targeting for more success in that regard in 2024.
“We’ll definitely reach out to him for sure,” he said. “That would be amazing. It will be at home for him and, with him deciding to retired soon, it would be unbelievable to do it at home in London.”
