Sharapova, 23 Murray lead cast in IPTL

MANILA, Philippines - Grand slam champions Maria Sharapova and Andy Murray will headline a high-powered Team Manila in the inaugural International Premier Tennis League set in November at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The IPTL will feature four teams in the inaugural season before adding additional franchises to the calendar with the Manila team competing against the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and India for the total money purse of US$1 million.

Joining Sharapova and Murray in the Manila squad are Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Kirsten Flipkens, Daniel Nestor, Carlos Moya and Fil-Am Treat Huey.

“We will launch many key local activities over the coming weeks to support the promotion of the event such as an IPTL style competition among the top universities with the winning  team to be honored during main IPTL event,” said Randy Villanueva, vice president of the Philippine Tennis Association of the Philippines (Philta).

The event was launched at Shangri La EDSA yesterday with the blockbuster event to be staged on Nov. 28-30.

“Congratulations to the IPTL to conceptualize such a unique sports format and we from the Philippines Sport Commission are proud to partner with the organizers to make this event a  great success for all the sports fans in the Philippines,” said PSC chair Richie Garcia.

“The Filipinos have a passion for sports and we are happy to add a major international tennis competition to our portfolio of basketball, boxing and football,” he added.

“To have the best players in the world competing in this unique team tennis competition will only encourage more players to take up tennis and help develop the sport in the Philippines,” said Philta president and Parañaque Mayor Edwin Olivarez.

He also took notice of the country’s No. 1 and world doubles Top 30 Huey’s inclusion in the team, saying “his fans will get to see him live in action at a home event for the first time.”

The IPTL is a new team tennis competition featuring the best current and former ATP and WTA players across four selected cities in Asia (Manila, Singapore, Delhi, Dubai). 

“It was time for innovations in tennis and similar to what the IPTL has done in cricket, I imagine the IPTL will do for tennis,” said IPTL founder Mahesh Bhupathi, winner of 53 ATP Tour titles.

“We have changed the traditional scoring format to single-set no-add scoring which will speed up the games and allows us to expose the fans to up to 24 different players in one evening,” said Bhupathi.