Andy Murray’s former coach suggests tennis change after seeing ‘unreal’ shot Ben Shelton has pulled off

Mark Petchey has offered up a major change he wants tennis officials to make after ‘beyond unreal’ Ben Shelton shot at the UTS event.

At the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) event in Frankfurt, Ben Shelton hustled his way to his first title.

He became the 10th champion in UTS history, beating Frenchman Ugo Humbert in a thrilling final that suitably capped off an entertaining week.

An already dynamic and powerful player, Shelton relished the new court set-up used at the UTS events.

Exclusively a singles event, the court doesn’t have any tramlines, meaning the net-posts are positioned on the singles lines rather than the doubles lines.

Mark Petchey insists the ATP tour should adopt the UTS court

The entertaining format was founded in 2022 by Naomi Osaka’s new coach Patrick Mouratoglou, with the year-end finals set to take place in London in December.

Andy Murray’s former coach and regular pundit Mark Petchey has said that he has been suggesting a change to this style of court for the ATP tour for a long time.

After a memserizing Shelton shot curling round the net-post, he spoke up again on X, saying: “This is beyond unreal but it’s been a point I have made numerous times why we don’t have mandatory singles nets on all singles matches.

“Singles nets were always on the single lines back in the day. We made it harder to entertain. Doubles nets (100%) should be on the doubles line,” he clarified.