Patrick Mouratoglou, Naomi Osaka’s coach, has shared his thoughts on the status of tennis, proposing a regulation to make things more enjoyable.
Patrick Mouratoglou, Naomi Osaka’s coach, has proposed a variety of improvements that might transform tennis in order to make it more enjoyable for fans.
With the ‘Big Three’ of men’s tennis no longer certain to generate large numbers with Roger Federer’s retirement and Rafael Nadal’s probable departure, Mouratoglou believes more needs to be done to persuade people to watch tennis.
The 54-year-old feels that the rules should be modified so that players can only serve once rather than twice, which will likely reduce the amount of aces and increase the average time the ball is in play.
Mouratoglou also proposed reducing the time between points, serves, and games so that viewers do not have to wait 25 or 30 seconds for activity on the court.
“There should only be one serve,” he explained. “Because otherwise, with the current server caliber, there are too many aces and serve winners, which is boring for the people. You know, [nowadays] you have one second of play and then 25 or 30 seconds of wait, which doesn’t work.”
Mouratoglou’s ideas may be taken seriously, considering the Australian is well regarded in the tennis community. He was Serena Williams’ coach for a decade, until she retired from tennis in 2022, having won 23 Grand Slam titles.
In September, it was announced that he would be teaming up with four-time Major winner Naomi Osaka. The 26-year-old split from Wim Fisette, with whom she won two of her four Grand Slam titles, after four years of working together.
And Osaka, who admitted she was first hesitant to work with Mouratoglou due to his reputation in tennis, met with the veteran coach in September of this year.
“The fact that he was Serena’s coach made me want to avoid him just because his persona is so big,” she told me. “This isn’t disrespectful because I discovered it wasn’t true, but I had no idea if he was a decent coach or if he coached Serena.
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