IPTL format a winner: founder

SINGAPORE — At the halfway point of its four-city tour, International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) founder and managing director Mahesh Bhupathi declared the sport’s newest property a winner and says he has “a line of people waiting outside my door”.

Confident of the IPTL’s future, the former Indian tennis star added that with a lot of interest the series, they will “definitely add two more cities” next year and will be back in Singapore.

In the three days of the second leg here, fans made a beeline for the Singapore Indoor Stadium and were entertained by some of the sport’s former and current stars such as Andre Agassi and Serena Williams.

Despite endearing itself to fans early in its infancy, there have been hiccups. For example, fans who bought tickets a month ago in anticipation that iconic stars such as Roger Federer and Pete Sampras would play here were sorely disappointed, but Bhupathi said the IPTL never promised these players would turn out.

As for whether his property delivers entertainment or competitive sport, Bhupathi said “people are entitled to their opinion”.

“Do we need to repackage it? No,” added Bhupathi, in a briefing to the media before the evening match which the Singapore Slammers beat the UAE Royals 27-25. “Our format has been accepted by the fans, by TV, and most importantly, the players. They love the team atmosphere and in our mind that’s a winner.”

But he said the IPTL is constantly tweaking the new, shorter format, such as introducing an extra powerpoint in the tie breaker and adding three minutes to the initial warm-up time.

“We are very clear in our mind what our concept is. The four Grand Slams will be the pillars of our sport. That’s where the most serious tennis takes place,” he added. “(In the IPTL) they are playing for a different reason and for each other ... we have carved out our place in the tennis calendar and are very happy about it.”

Former Singapore Tennis Association general manager Gilbert Ng, who attended all three nights of the event here, said Bhupathi and his team must be clear in what the IPTL is actually selling.

“If they expect to see a high level of tennis competition, then they won’t be getting much of this,” Ng told TODAY. “There is a little bit of both competition and entertainment, and you can see that the fans were having fun. But if IPTL is to develop brand loyalty, their challenge is to communicate to fans what their product is all about.

“If people want serious tennis, then something like the Woman’s Tennis Association Finals is what they want. The IPTL with its entertainment element complements it, and it has a future in this segment of the market.”

Expanding the IPTL next year to include two more stops means finding six more days in the tight window between the end of the regular season in mid-November to the start of the new season on January, and team owners may be hard-pressed to convince their star players to play all six legs without depriving them of time needed to recuperate.

This may mean owners expanding their player rosters, a decision Bhupathi said would be left to the owners to decide.

“The franchises are the ones who pick the teams, not me. So they will pick the team depending on how much they are able to spend. If they are going to spend the money it should not put a strain on their finances,” he said.

Future plans would include dividing teams into two groups, though this would only happen if the series expands to eight teams, said Bhupathi.