Tennis: Will IPTL 2018 return?

Financial difficulties caused the International Tennis Premier League (IPTL) a lot of problems last year and resulted in a cancellation for this year’s edition. The founder of the tournament series, Mahesh Bhupathi, still hopes to revive the event on a smaller scale.

As Christopher Clarey, a New York Times journalist, said yesterday, Bhupathi wants to deliver IPTL in a single country. Originally, the league’s model envisaged playing in different countries on up to five matchdays,”it’s hard to say we’ll see (whether it will work, note)”, twittered Clarey.

The IPTL was the forerunner in a shortened tennis match mode, similar to what ATP tried at the Next Gen Finals in Milan. Another parallel was the shot clock, and the mood was also loosened up with cheerleaders and DJs. Teams that resembled a franchise from the American sports system competed against each other. Each team of the IPTL consisted of ladies, men and legends who competed against the counterparts of the other teams.

Last year, however, the series had to be shortened from five to three matchdays, and the organisers suffered from the rejections of Roger Federer, but above all Serena Williams, who retired one day before her performance.

“We really tried everything that Serena played,”said Bhupathi to the Straits Times back then,”She wanted to come and play a few matches in front of Australia, but it wasn’t supposed to be.” Williams’ absence meant that only 1,000 fans came to Singapore’s 12,000-seat tennis stadium.

In the meantime, IPTL has also received competition from the Laver Cup, which was successfully held in Prague for the first time this year. However, only the male tennis elite will compete in the Laver Cup.