Where should we start, Patrick Mouratoglou? You escaped much flak for saying, after Simona Halep tested positive for the banned substance roxadustat two years ago and claimed collagen contamination, “I feel responsible for what happened, because it’s my team, so me basically, who brought her this collagen.” More recently, your dubious analysis of the Novak Djokovic–Jannik Sinner Australian Open semifinal invited one Rafa Nadal—a champion so tech-averse that he refers to TikTok as a “young tool”—to dump a few mocking emojis in your comments. A couple days after that, Anna Kalinskaya said on Elina Vesnina’s podcast that your academy’s weight routine didn’t tailor to individuals, so she hurt her back when she trained there, and the injury still flares up on her. Or should we go back to the 2018 US Open final, back when you were coaching Serena Williams? You gestured that she should come to the net, which got her a coaching violation that set into motion the whole disastrous chain of events that unfortunately defined that final and robbed Naomi Osaka of the euphoric moment she deserved. Afterward, you admitted that you were coaching, but took some shots at the rule, as if you’d done nothing wrong. I know a politician who does that. 

You once said, “Ten years ago the average age of the tennis fan was 51 years old. Today it’s 61. In 10 years it’s going to be 71,” to help market the inaugural edition of your Ultimate Tennis Showdown, as if the sport wouldn’t gain a single new, young fan in the following decade. (Seems to be doing pretty okay these days.) You refer to yourself in your Instagram bio as “THE COACH,” a stroke of breathtaking hubris that a professional athlete couldn’t match by calling themselves “THE PLAYER” unless their ranking had four digits in it. Your bio also lists the following accomplishments: “10 Grand Slams 🏆2 Olympic 🏅39 Titles 🏆,” as if you’d won them yourself, when in reality the numbers reflect players’ accomplishments while you coached them. Your posts include video shorts of you on podcasts, complete with graphics that pop up as you speak, reminiscent of the aspiringly profitable YouTuber (maybe you should market yourself as THE INFLUENCER); a thumbnail with pictures of Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz that reads “SAME OR DIFFERENT?” with the first and last word in yellow, lest we fail to grasp the emphasis of the all-caps (THE CLICKBAIT ARTIST); and an advertisement “Introducing Mouratoglou Apparel men’s underwear” (THE MODEL). 

You once launched an NFT line. You’ve tweeted things like “Novak can tie Serena as the greatest tennis player of all times today,” and “The most difficult match of Novak’s entire career today,” before Djokovic beat Casper Ruud to win his 23rd major title. You have figured out, clearly, that pursuing provocation at the price of substance will net you more clicks, not fewer, from the casual fans, and that even those with standards tend to ignore you, but still treat you like the respected voice when you say something that starts a discussion. 

You wear a lot of hats for somebody with a credential as impressive as “used to coach the GOAT.” And frankly, they’re all pretty annoying. They make you look like a quack, or a hack, when probably you have a decent tennis mind. You clearly don’t have enough shame to feel embarrassed about the fact that the quality of your tennis analysis these days isn’t really distinguishable from the YouTube channel Fuzzy Yellow Balls, whose entire shtick is making up names for basic rally patterns. 

I have to ask, Patrick—what’s the motivation here? I know running an academy can’t be cheap, but if your financial sense is any better than Floyd Mayweather’s, between all the paychecks you’re cashing from the players you work with, the pretty penny you charge for lessons and camps, and your many other revenue streams, you’re fine for cash. Reputation-wise, surely you’d have fewer Reddit threads trashing you if you just sat back and let your association with so very many excellent tennis players speak for itself. The more skewed, spicy takes you serve up about Sinner and Alcaraz, the more Facebook posts you deliver that reek of AI, the more you’re suggesting that these players have succeeded in spite of you, and that you don’t really know what you’re talking about. I must say, I cannot imagine any amount of social media revenue that would make banishing “coached Serena Williams while she won 10 of her 23 major titles” from the forefront of my résumé in favor of “irritating tennis shitposter” worthwhile.

Our society, these days, emphasizes profitability and capitalistic domination and ignores more relatable things like standards, or shame. There are too many examples of people who have stuffed themselves into this mold, making the world a more annoying place to live in doing so. You’re certainly tennis’s chief offender.