This year's off-season will feature two inter-city tennis leagues, with the International Tennis Premier League (IPTL), featuring four Asian cities, to be joined by the Champions Tennis League (CTL), which will be played in six Indian cities.
The CTL, developed by former Indian ATP player Vijay Amritraj with cooperation from the All Indian Tennis Association, will be held over 10 days in November, just as the two weeks of the ITPL get underway. But while the ITPL is a big-budget concept featuring several big names including Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Serena Williams, the CTL will consist mostly of players ranked outside the Top 20, with Venus Williams, David Ferrer, and Agnieszka Radwanska notable exceptions.
The teams, along with their top players, are as follows:
Mumbai—Tommy Robredo, Alize Cornet, Sergi Bruguera
Pune—Agnieszka Radwanska, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Pat Cash
Bangalore—Venus Williams, Feliciano Lopez, Thomas Enqvist
Delhi—Jelena Jankovic, Kevin Anderson, Juan Carlos Ferrero
Chennai—Mikhail Youzhny, Martina Hingis, Mark Philippoussis
Chandigarh—David Ferrer, Garbine Muguruza, Greg Rusedski, Somdev Devvarman
In addition, each team will include one Indian player (for Chandigarh, it’s Devvarman) and one local junior boy and girl, bringing the roster to six players. The retired “legend” on each team will also serve as the captain.
The winning team will receive about $150,000, with matches to be televised in the country.