Patrick Mouratoglou is a name well-known in the tennis community. The French coach is known for his brutally honest opinions on his social media pages and podcasts and often stirs up controversies due to those. Recently, reports have been circulating about how much money he charges for one-on-one coaching sessions at his academy and that has stunned enthusiasts of the game.
The 53-year-old has coached Serena Williams, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Grigor Dimitrov, Simona Halep, Holger Rune and Stefanos Tsitsipas among others. However, he is more famous now for his social media comments and digs at other players. His comments about the Olympics being unimportant for players as compared to Grand Slams, received criticism from fans as well as players.
Serena Williams upped the profile of Patrick Mouratoglou
Mouratoglou coached Serena Williams for 10 years and the duo enjoyed great success. He had been Williams’ coach from June 2012 until nearly her retirement at the US Open in 2022. Williams hired Mouratoglou after losing in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career at the 2012 French Open. He was brought to the limelight as Serena Williams’ coach and got famous.
Along with success as Williams’ coach, the Frenchman earned a hefty fee along with it. Along with Williams, the Frenchman has coached other big names like Halep, Dimitrov and Rune. Mouratoglou has a net worth of $5 million as in 2023 as per Market Realist. Patrick Mouratoglou charges $7,500 for a one-on-one session for 90 minutes, as per his academy’s website. The fans were stunned to see the Frenchman charging such a high price.
In 2017, Patrick Mouratoglou claimed that there were around 170 students taking full-time residential courses in his academy, which was opened by Serena Williams. It was reported widely in European media outlets that the French celebrity coach charged each student between the ages of 11 and 18 above $45000 USD per annum approximately at the time for the same. If that year is alone calculated, the Frenchman earned a minimum of $7.65 million from student fees alone (of course expenses and other costs to run the academy have not been taken into account here).
That figure must have surely shot up by a large margin if 2023 is considered. He accepted that not every parent in Europe, let alone France might afford to send their children to the academy but the investment would not go in vain. Even if the child does not become a well-settled professional player, they still can play the game well which can open up other career options for them and learn vital life skills along the way.
Mouratoglou has added more money into his bank courtesy his own ventures like the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS), in which players like Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz and Nick Kyrgios have participated. He also does a lot of commentary stints on television, which pay him handsomely due to his profile. As Mouratoglou passes a net worth of 5 million USD, it is worth noting that he is among the highest coaches to be paid in the game currently. Goran Ivanisevic and Carlos Moya are perhaps his closest competitors due to their associations with Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal respectively.
Mouratoglou and Nadal are rivals
Patrick Mouratoglou and Rafael Nadal are also rivals in a way. The Frenchman has constantly picked Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer over the Spaniard. Also, Mouratoglou has constantly taken digs at Nadal over his injury records and unavailability for major tournaments.
One possible explanation for this rivalry is Rafael Nadal’s academy in Spain is more sought after than Mouratoglou’s in France, despite reportedly being more expensive. Nadal already has Casper Ruud and other young stars come out of his academy and make a name for themselves, but the same can’t be said about the Frenchman.
Mouratoglou is now perhaps looking for a new gig after Holger Rune decided to sack him and replace him with Boris Becker. It would be imperative that his search ends soon to support his academy and UTS venture.
