Andre Agassi And Julie Plec Team On Tennis Series 'Rally'

While the recent tennis season has come to a close, Amazon MGM Studios, Universal Television and Entertainment 360 along with one of the sport’s icons are looking to team on a new scripted series set in the world of a competitive tennis academy.

Sources have confirmed to Deadline that Amazon and Universal are teaming on the scripted series Rally, with Julie Plec on as showrunner and Andre Agassi set as an executive producer. Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady will executive produce, with Plec also exec producing through her My So-Called banner along with partner Emily Cummins. Justin Gimelstob will also exec produce.

Set at a hyper-competitive elite tennis academy, the series follows ambitious young players who discover the loneliest sport in the world demands sacrificing the very connections that might be the only thing that makes winning feel worth it.

Casady, a lifelong tennis fan who has spent his recent years not just following the sport but traveling with his two sons to tournaments all over the country, came up with the idea after spending time at multiple tennis/sports academies with his sons. Entertainment 360 then partnered with Plec’s My So-Called Company, before Plec herself decided to write.

Casady and Entertainment 360 are no strangers to sports series having recently exec produced the Apple TV+ series Stick starring Owen Wilson as a PGA golfer-turned-coach. The show was recently renewed for a second season. Casady and Entertainment 360 also exec produced HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Agassi is a former world No. 1 with 60 career ATP Tour singles titles, including eight majors, whose charisma on the court made him a pop culture icon in the 1990s and early 2000s. He is one of only five players in history to complete the career Grand Slam and win the Olympic singles gold medal. Through his 2010 memoir Open, Agassi laid bare his childhood exiled to the original tennis academy — the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, FL — and how after reaching world No. 1 and falling to world No, 141 he used his commitment to impacting lives through education and his Andre Agassi Foundation for Education to inspire his comeback.

Plec is under an overall deal at Universal Television, where she and Cummins under My So-Called Company have projects in development across multiple platforms. The company recently launched We Were Liars (based on the bestselling novel by E. Lockhart), which rose to No. 1 worldwide on Prime Video. Prior to that was The Girls on the Bus for Max, inspired by a chapter in Amy Chozick’s bestselling book Chasing Hillary. Plec is responsible for the complete Vampire Diaries Universe, which spanned 13 years and more than 300 episodes of television.

Gimelstob won 17 tour titles including the 1998 Australian Open and French Open mixed doubles title with Venus Williams. Gimelstob was national junior champion in every age division, and was the NCAA doubles champion at UCLA. After his playing career, he built a multifaceted career across broadcasting, production, talent representation and brand management.

Plec is represented by WME, Entertainment 360 and Felker, Toczek, Suddleson, McGinnis Ryan.

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