ITPL gets ready to serve its brand of tennis

Manila Mavericks: Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Kirsten Flipkens, Daniel Nestor, Carlos Moya, Maria Sharapova, Treat Huey (Manila, Nov 28-30)

Singapore Slammers: Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, Tomas Berdych, Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios, Daniela Hantuchova, Bruno Soares, Pat Rafter

(Singapore, Dec 2-4)

Indian Aces: Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Gael Monfils, Ana Ivanovic, Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna, Fabrice Santoro (New Delhi, Dec 6-10)

UAE Royals: Novak Djokovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Malek Jaziri, Nenad Zimonjic, Goran Ivanisevic, Kristina Mladenovic, Marin Cilic (Dubai, Dec 11-13)

Set format.

Each match will feature five sets – men’s singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles, men’s doubles, men’s legends singles. The order of play to be decided by the home team and the team line up is given to the umpire 45 minutes before the match starts.

Match format.

Each match consists of five sets. The sets will be played in the traditional format but in a case of a tie at 5-5, a four minute ‘shoot out’ will follow. There will be no ‘advantage’ point played after deuce; instead the person who wins the next point will take the game. And each game won counts as one point for the team’s total.

Match Winner.

The team that wins the most games- accumulated from all five sets – wins the match. If a match is tied after five sets the Super Shoot Out determines the match winner. A team that wins a match receives 4 points.

Shoot Out. 

A five-minute Shoot Out will be played at five games all to replace the traditional seven-point tie breaker. The player who wins the most points within the first four minutes wins the set. Players will have a 20 seconds shot clock between points and will lose a point in case the clock runs out. If the score is tied at the end of the five minutes, the next point will decide the shoot out and the set.

Super Shoot Out.

It will played to settle the score in case the points total between the teams is tied after five sets. The Super Shoot Out is played the same way as the Shoot Out but will last for seven minutes.Unless otherwise agreed, the Super Shoot Out will be played between the leading men’s players of both teams. In case the marquee player is injured, the team can decide to substitute with the other male singles player, or with a doubles/legends player.

Time Out.

It’s a made-for-TV format, so more the stoppages, merrier it is. Each team will be allowed a time-out, which has to be called by the coach at any time, once every set. Each time-out will last for 60 seconds.

Power Point.

To further spice up the affair, a receiving player will be allowed to call a ‘Power Point’ once every set indicating that the next point counts double.

$1mn Total prize money for the tournament

$40mn Total money invested in the league by all stakeholders, including players’ salaries.

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