By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday July 2, 2019
Patrick Mouratoglou joins Tennis Now to talk about the evolution of his academy and the rise of his athletes.
Photo Source: William West/Getty
Patrick Mouratoglou is known by many as the coach to Serena Williams, but he is much more than that. The founder of the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy has been a fixture in the game for over two decades and he has academy has expanded over the years right along with his influence. Now situated in the French Riviera, Mouratoglou’s academy is the training base for many top players including Williams, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexei Popyrin, Coco Gauff and many more. The academy is also houses 200 full-time student athletes and ranks as Europes top academy in terms of U.S. college placement.
Tennis Now caught up with Mouratoglou at Wimbledon to discuss his career, critical decisions that have shaped the way he approaches coaching and, of course, his players. You can listen to the full interview below, or move below the jump to read the full transcript of the interview.
TN: Talk about the evolution of the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy
Patrick Mouratoglou: We were in Paris before. I started my academy in 1996, with an idea… at that time it was very different and the idea was this: I thought that every player deserved something really adapted to him or her. And at that time I would say that most of the tennis academies and the federations, they were totally into a different way to coach people, they were thinking ‘let’s create a system and the players have to fit into a system,’ and I thought ‘No, that’s wrong, we have to create a system that fits the people.’ And that’s what I did in 1996, I had a lot of success with players and the academy grew year after year and at some point the academy was too small, so we decided to move.
Also, it was a good time to think about it—because I thought it’s the moment to invest for the next 20, 30, 40 years. Where is the best place to be? I wanted to stay in Europe because when you’re European I think it’s difficult to move to other places to live and I love France and the South of France is just a dream, and I moved my academy next to Nice and Cannes, where the Cannes film festival is, it’s 15 minutes from the airport which is the second biggest international airport in France, where in the French Riviera which is one of the top spots in Europe for holidays, it’s absolutely beautiful, the weather is incredible, we play outdoors all year, and I could buy a place that is big enough to fit all our projects.
We have two main activities. We have several others, but the two main ones are first a program for players all year which includes of course, the school. School, tennis, fitness and everything and housing of course. We started that a long time ago, and the idea is to bring young people to success whether it’s in tennis or in life in general, and we work actually with all the American universities—we get scholarships for our players, for the ones who are not going to become pros or maybe who will try but later. And we send a lot of pros on tour also with a lot of success in the past.
And the second thing is the camps and the summer camps. We have 3,500 campers per year, we will probably have 4,000 this year actually. But even though we are big in terms of numbers, we always find a way to have one coach for four players to be able to do something that is really individualized for each player.
TN: Intimacy?
Patrick Mouratoglou: Yes.
TN: So the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy is the No.1 program in Europe for college placement in American universities?
Patrick Mouratoglou: Yes.
TN: How quickly did that happen for you guys?
Patrick Mouratoglou: You know I’m doing this job now for 23 years so it didn’t happen quickly but it’s okay. That’s something that I always wanted to be able to do really well in our program, and doing really well is not that easy because you have to do well on the tennis you have to do well on the fitness you have to do well with the school and we have the responsibility of those kids and I think I want to give them all the chances to succeed.
It took time. I think today we have the best program, just look at the results of tennis, look at the results in terms of college placement and you see we’re No.1 everywhere, because also we’ve been very focused for the last 23 years.
TN: Just to give the listeners an idea of just how big the place is. 35 coaches on staff, 15 teachers for the schools and another 130 employees so that’s pretty maxed out—everything that a young guy could want.
Patrick Mouratoglou: And it’s a big resort. We also have a hotel on site. 155 rooms, four stars, we just built a building with a lot of apartments, we have 62 apartments on site also. We have padel, we have four swimming pools, 34 courts, two gyms and we’re building now an office building also on site, so yeah for Europe it’s a very big resort, for the U.S. maybe not as big because you’re used to really large resorts but for us it’s really big.
TN: Did you take any inspiration from Nick Bolletieri and all that he has done with his academy and IMG?
Patrick Mouratoglou: First I love Nick I think he’s an incredible person. I have a great deal of respect for him and everything that he’s achieved. I think we both have our own philosophy. We’re different, we get along really well, but I think that every academy has the philosophy of its creator, its founder. We are very different from the IMG academy, but the great thing is that there are different offers on the market and each player has the chance to find something that fits him well. It’s great that there are different offers, different philosophies, and we are all very professional whether it’s us, Rafa, IMG—everybody is professional in a different way, and it’s great for the players.
TN: I took some inspiration from part of your story. Back in the day when you were a player that dreamt about being in the sport, you had to make a very tough decision between family and between tennis. You chose family, you worked in your father’s business and that was a bit of a heartbreaker to leave the game for a while but you had the passion to come back to the sport and now you are here to stay obviously. How does that decision you made and how it turned out inform you as a person and what your academy does with its students?
Patrick Mouratoglou: That was a key moment in my life. And I have to say that this decision to quit tennis when I was 15, 16 years old, it created a lot of frustration. An incredible frustration. And I explain in my book that the worst feelings and frustrations can be an incredible motivator and can end up being something positive, and I think for me this frustration was the key to give me the motivation to do and to achieve everything that I have achieved in the last 25 years. So in a way, if you are able to turn out even a negative feeling into something that can be powerful to you, that’s great and that’s a good lesson in life. I didn’t realize that but now that I’m a bit older I know that this frustration was what made me do and achieve everything.
TN: You worked under (legendary coach) Bob Brett, would that be the proper way to say it? Back in your early days in Paris, or together with him?
Patrick Mouratoglou: In a way I was under him and over also. I was over him because I hired him, but he was a great coach and I was nothing, so he taught me the job. I hired him because I wanted the academy to have his name because I was nobody in tennis and I thought that I needed a big name in order to convince young, good players to come to come to my academy, so I hired him and also I kind of paid for his name and I hired him for 50 days a year, and we had a great relationship and he was kind enough to bring me on the tennis court so many times and he was excited to show me stuff—he kind of taught me my job, yes, for sure.
TN: And then you made another key decision because you broke away from Bob Brett because you wanted autonomy. That was another important decision in your career, wouldn’t you say?
Patrick Mouratoglou: I stopped with him because there was no other option at that point. Because things were going wrong, as you said it was very tough because we had such a strong relationship and I had no other option than to stop and I thought at that time it was terrible because I invested in his name for six years, because the academy then was the Bob Brett Academy and I started from scratch again after six years. So that is when I took the decision to put my name because I thought otherwise I will never create a brand, if people leave there is no way I am going to create a brand—I’m the only one who is not going to leave.
TN: I’m getting a feel for your brand. I was sitting up there in the media pavilion waiting for you and I saw several people walk by with Mouratoglou Academy gear on, including the young Aussie Alexei Popyrin.
Before we talk about Popyrin and other players, I wanted to go back to Marcos Baghdatis. It’s his last Wimbledon and the last professional event of his career. I know that you guys shared a very important part of his career. I wonder if you can take me back and tell me a bit of what Marcos means to you and what the experience of being with him during the best moments of his career was like?
Patrick Mouratoglou: He was like a son to me because he came to my tennis academy when he was 13 and a half years old. The academy was small at that time, we didn’t have many players, I was very close to him. I was actually driving him every morning. He was living at some people’s apartment that I found for him and I was picking him up every morning, bringing him to the academy, we had all these talks every morning, we were incredibly close, so we shared a lot of things, from 13 years old to world champion in juniors and then at 20 years old he reached the final of a Grand Slam in Australia, he lost in four sets to Roger Federer. He reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon the same year, became Top 10 in the world, so we went a long way. We spent probably around eight years together and he was a kid, so…
I explain in my book that it didn’t end well between us and I take the full responsibility because I was much older, I had not much experience, and I learned a lot from that. It was very painful for me because again he was like a son, and to have this relationship kind of… yeah we lost our relationship, it was very painful but I realized that in my job I should not put too much emotions and when you have emotions you have to be able to step back—it taught me a lot of things about my job.
TN: Maybe you won’t be close with him now as you watch his last Wimbledon, but will a part of you be emotional and reflect on some of these memories you guys have?
Patrick Mouratoglou: Oh, for sure. For sure. First of all he was my first player who really did something big. Thanks to him Mouratoglou Academy became famous all around the world, because when a player reaches a Grand Slam final, he’s seen all over the world. He did a lot for the academy, so this I will always remember and I think our destinies are kind of together, they’re linked and so when he retires it’s going to feel very strange and for sure very emotional.
TN: Let’s chat about this 15-year-old phenom Coco Gauff who is the youngest Wimbledon qualifier in the Open Era, she’s been training at the academy with you for a while—you must be incredibly proud of what she’s done already.
Patrick Mouratoglou: For sure. The first time she came to my academy she was ten years old and I remember how impressed I was with her qualities and her potential and I thought wow if things are done right she can become incredible. Not that she isn’t incredible already; she has already achieved a lot in a very short period. She won a Grand Slam in juniors at 14 years old but she also made history and 13 and a half when she reached the finals of the U.S. Open juniors. She was the youngest in the Open Era. She’s 15 and she’s broken a few records already which is incredible, and the fact that she plays against Venus here in the first round is a dream come true for here because Venus is her idol and so is Serena—they are the reason that she started playing tennis. So when she saw the draw you have no idea how happy she was. That’s why those players play tennis. She wants to be on big courts, she wants to play against the top players and hopefully one day she hopes to win a Grand Slam or… one would be already great.
TN: Another player with a lot of potential the Aussie Alexei Popyrin, can you talk about his chances here at Wimbledon?
Patrick Mouratoglou: We have been working together for a few years, he won Roland Garros juniors two years ago. I think he has a big, big game. He’s tall he has a big serve, big forehand and great hands—he loves to come to the net. I think grass is a good surface for him. He’s going very fast now, one year and a half ago he was 600 in the world, again he is rising fast in the rankings which is a very good sign. Great guy, great personality—love him. We have a great group and I think that everybody is helping each other. The fact that Stefanos Tsitsipas went up so fast, helped also Popyrin, now it’s Coco who is coming and I feel like everybody is going to pull each other up.
We also have Rudolf Molleker, who is great. He is 18 years old and he qualified for the Australian, where he was the youngest in the draw, and then at Roland Garros, and he is going to be a good one as well.
TN: And Stefanos you mentioned, this is just a wildly talented player with so much personality. He’s not just a player at your academy, he also has an expanded role?
Patrick Mouratoglou: He’s the godfather of the tennis and school program, yes. He’s such a nice person he loves to give back already to people. He’s very kind, of course he’s very focused on his career but he likes to give. Of course we expect him to do well, he’s one of the only young guys that can say he beat Roger in a Grand Slam, he beat Rafa on clay, he beat Novak in a Masters 1000 but also beat Zverev, Dominic Thiem several times, so he can play, he can play great tennis, but you know how difficult it is to win a Grand Slam and beat two out of three of the greatest players of all-time which is the minimum you have to beat to win here, and you know how incredibly difficult it is, and you know at the Australian Open he beat Roger but he lost to Rafa. To beat those guys back-to-back is probably one of the toughest things to do in the history of the sport. Because those guys are the biggest ever and they are still playing their best.
TN: Is Stefanos one of those players that we’re not going to figure out which surface is his best because he is so good on all of them?
Patrick Mouratoglou: That would be a good problem to have. Yes, I think his game fits all surface, and I’m totally unable to tell you if he will win a Grand Slam, which one will be the first one, because he’s able to play well and to figure out how to win because it’s more about that and I think that’s his greatest quality. Since I’ve known him I was impressed by his ability to win. He is a great competitor. He’s the kind of player who figures out how to win. It doesn’t work all the time but I’ve seen him beat a lot of guys that I think were better than him tennis-wise at that time and that’s why he has risen so fast in the rankings but yes, that’s why he was able to play well on all surfaces, he figures out how to win on all surfaces.
TN: I’ll finish by reading a quote back to you that you said about Serena in the New York Times. You said, regarding the talk that Serena had an unlucky draw at Wimbledon: “I think it’s bad luck for THEM.”
Patrick Mouratoglou: I’m not going to disagree with myself. I said it and I mean it. If I was a player in the women’s draw, I would not like to be in the same part of the draw as Serena, so I think it’s bad luck.” Patrick Mouratoglou