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What if someone told you that you can see Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, all play tennis at the same time in a competitive tournament while they represent the pride of cities, IPL style? Too good to be true, right? Well, it isn’t. The International Premier Tennis League, which is set to commence in later November this year offers exactly that. The brainchild of Indian Tennis legend Mahesh Bhupati, the tournament takes the best of superstars, both of the yesteryear and present, and throws them under one roof to offer some of the most breathtaking tennis imaginable.
"We wanted a model which was TV friendly, spectator friendly and of course player friendly. The biggest complaint in tennis has been that you have no control over time of a match,”
“You don't know if Grand Slam final will be a two-hour match or a five-hour match. Here we are guaranteeing TV that it will be over in maximum of three hours, so all are excited.”
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Andre Agassi (United States)
Lleyton Hewitt (Australia)
Patrick Rafter (Australia)
Tomáš Berdych (Czech Republic)
Serena Williams (United States)
Daniela Hantuchová (Slovakia)
Andy Murray (United Kingdom)
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France)
Victoria Azarenka (Belarus)
Kirsten Flipkens (Belgium)
Pete Sampras (United States)
Janko Tipsarević (Serbia)
Goran Ivanišević (Croatia)
Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark)
Martina Hingis (Switzerland)
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"I don't know much about it to be honest,"
"I just didn't sign up because I didn't want to. I first wanted to see it get off the ground. I wanted them to put in the work. They've already signed up a lot of other guys. I hope it's going to be successful, because there is definitely potential in the Asian market, so many people live here, a lot of tennis enthusiasts come from this part of the world."
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“Things need to change. I believe the bad thing about the calendar is how it is made and obligates you to play tournaments all year.”
"This is something that tennis needs. Back in my time we would have loved to have a series of tournaments in Asia, where the demand for world class tennis as an entertainment concept merges with the needs and wishes of millions of fans."
"Tennis will benefit in general. The youngsters will get to watch top players in action. Young players will also be involved, so let's see,”
