The inaugural Champions Tennis League (CTL) from Nov 17-26 to be played across six cities in India won’t have any clash of interests with the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL), though, both will have franchises based out of New Delhi, former Indian tennis star and CTL promoter Vijay Amritraj said Friday.
“There is only one tennis league in India and that is CTL. IPTL is an Asia-based competition. Ours is an India centric endeavour. There is no clash with IPTL. It is raining sports leagues in the country with several sports having a league of its own.
“So we decided it was time to have a tennis league which will help in unearthing fresh talent. Sports in India is going through a transformation and is evolving rapidly. So both leagues can co-exist side-by-side,” Amritraj said at a press conference here for the unveiling of the city-based team, named ‘Delhi Dreams’.
The Delhi team comprises of former men’s World No.1 Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, ex-women’s top-ranked player Jelena Jankovic, South African Kevin Anderson and Indian Sana Singh.
The tournament will be played across six Indian cities of Chandigarh, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi.
Each franchise picked four players from an auctionless draft of 24 that had former women’s No.1 Martina Hingis and former-No.8 Marcos Baghdatis as wildcard entrants.
The Mahesh Bhupathi-owned IPTL, starting Nov 28, will be held across four Asian cities — Delhi, Manila, Dubai and Singapore.
