The concept of the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL), a brainchild of India's doubles tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi, is an innovative idea to bring together current champions, tennis legends and upcoming talents in a format that's never been seen before in the game. The 16-day tournament that starts on November 28 and finishes on December 13, comes in as a refreshing change in an otherwise repetitive and very hectic tennis calendar.
A total of 28 players will represent the four franchise teams: Manila Mavericks, Singapore Slammers, Indian Aces and and the UAE Royals.
The IPTL has made many changes in playing rules and scoring format to make the game more exciting. These changes will allow viewers to see up to 24 players in a day's play and will also determine a definite start and finish time for matches. The tournament will be played in a round-robin format and will be organised on franchise basis in each city.
Here is a look at the scoring format in the tournament:
Each match will have five sets and each set will be played on first-to-six-games basis with a four-minute shoot out at five-all. No additional scoring will be applied for each game and each game won will count as one point for the team's total.
The five sets of a match will have a Men's Singles, a Women's Singles, a Mixed Doubles, a Men's Doubles and a Men's Legends Singles. The order of play will be decided by the home team and the team line-up will be given to the umpire 45 minutes before the start of the match.
Match Winner
A team that wins the most number of games after five sets will win the match. And, if a match is tied after five sets, the Super Shoot Out will decide the winner.
The team that wins a match receives four points. A losing team that wins more than 20 game points wins two points. A losing team with ten game points wins two points and a losing team with less than ten game points gets no points.
The team with the most number of points will win the league and in the event of a tie in team standings, the team with the most match wins will be declared winner.
At the start of each match a coin toss will decide which team serves first in the first game of each match. The team that served last in the last game/Shoot Out of the previous match will automatically be the receiver in the next set. In case of a Super Shoot Out, a coin toss will decide who serves first.
Shoot Out and Super Shoot Out
A four-minute Shoot Out will be played at five games all to replace the traditional seven point tie-breaker. The Shoot Out follows the traditional tie-breaker rules and the player starting the Shoot Out will serve for one point and from then onwards every player will serve for two points.
There will be no change overs during the Shoot Out and the player who wins the most number of points within the four minutes will win the set.
Shot Clock
Players will have a 20-seconds shot clock between points and they will lose a point in case the shot clock runs out. If the score is tied at the end of the four minutes, the player who wins the next point wins the Shoot Out and the set.
A shot clock manages the following and can be set, stopped and re-started only by the Chair Umpire:
- 20-seconds shot clock between points
- 20-seconds shot clock between points during Shoot Out and Super Shoot Out
- 45-seconds shot clock during change overs
- 60-seconds shot clock for coach's timeouts
- 3-minutes shot clock after the end of each set
- Any time-violation will result in a point loss for the violating team
Super Shoot Out
The Super Shoot Out is played the same way as the Shoot Out, but it will last for seven minutes and will be played to settle the score in case the points total between the teams is tied after five sets. Each player will receive two player challenges during the Super Shoot Out.
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