Serena Williams' coach and Nadal planning matches at academies

Both Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams' coach Patrick Mouratoglou announced plans to stage matches at their tennis academies.

With top-level professional tennis shut down until at least July 13, both academies said they were examining the possibility of staging and broadcasting matches so fans could watch remotely.

While the Rafael Nadal academy, based on the Spanish island of Mallorca, said on its website that it was in talks with the ATP on how to proceed, Mouratoglou released a statement unveiling a planned "league" of 50 matches at his academy near Nice in the south of France and talking of "millions of US dollars in prize money".

The Nadal Academy said it was considering becoming "a campus where elite players can reside, train and compete between themselves in matches that will be televised so that fans around the world can enjoy them."
"I think that competing among ourselves would help us maintain our game for when the tour restarts."
The statement posted on social media said that the "UTS aims to reinvent the way tennis is usually experienced and consumed."
Mouratoglou said that the competition will be "player-centric" could be "particularly beneficial to lower-ranked players."