2015 International Premier Tennis League season

2015 International Premier Tennis League
League	International Premier Tennis League
Sport	Team tennis
Duration	2–20 December 2015
Number of teams	5
TV partner(s)	Sports5 Abu Dhabi Media Integrated Sports Media TSN-RDS WOWOW SingTel STAR Sports ESPN Latin America ESPN Brasil
League champions	Singapore Slammers
Runners-up	Indian Aces
IPTL seasons
← 2014 2016 →

The 2015 International Premier Tennis League season (2015 IPTL season, officially the 2015 Coca-Cola International Premier Tennis League Presented by Qatar Airways season pursuant to sponsorship agreements with The Coca-Cola Company and Qatar Airways) is the second season of the professional team tennis league contested by five teams in Asia.

Format

The teams compete in a customized round robin format of matches in each host country. The top two teams at the end of the round robin stage qualify for the final. The winner of the final is declared the champion. ^[1]

In the 2015 season, the league has terminated the "last set importance" which gave the trailing team an opportunity to continue playing if they win the fifth set as played out in the 2014 season. In the 2015 season, the fifth set continues in the conventional way, where the first team to score 6 games wins the set, with a 13-point tie-breaker to decide the winner, if the two teams are tied at 5–5. ^[1]

If the two teams are tied (in terms of games won) at the end of the five Sets, a super shoot-out is played in a men's singles format to determine the winner of the match. It is played as a 19-point super tiebreaker. The first team to win 10 points, 9–9 final point wins the Super Shoot-Out and hence the Match. A 2-point difference is not required, and it is not time bound (unlike the 2014 season). The match-winner is the team that wins the most games and hence points, at the end of the five sets. ^[1]

The league standings are determined on the basis of the win-loss percentage of overall games won versus lost therefore making every game played count. The two teams with the best percentage ratios qualify for the finals. In the event that two teams are tied for the second place, the following criteria determines which team qualifies for the finals: ^[1]

• head-to-head results
• largest winning margin, by games, in any single match
• coin toss

Teams

Five teams will compete in the 2015 IPTL season. Japan Warriors is set to become the fifth team to participate at the IPTL.^{[ citation needed ]}

• Indian Aces
• Philippine Mavericks
• Singapore Slammers
• UAE Royals
• Japan Warriors

Draft results

Novak Djokovic pulled out of the tournament and was replaced by Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka by Singapore Slammers. Dustin Brown replaced Thanasi Kokkinakis. Milos Raonic replaced Borna Ćorić. Édouard Roger-Vasselin replaced Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Philipp Kohlschreiber replaced Vasek Pospisil. Pierre-Hugues Herbert replaced Lucas Pouille. Mirjana Lučić-Baroni replaced Daniela Hantuchová. Alja Tomljanović replaced Sabine Lisicki.

Category	Philippine Mavericks	UAE Royals	Indian Aces	Singapore Slammers	Japan Warriors
Men
Icon players		Roger Federer	Rafael Nadal	Andy Murray
Category A	Milos Raonic	Tomáš Berdych	Bernard Tomic	Stan Wawrinka	Kei Nishikori
Category B	Richard Gasquet	Marin Čilić	Gaël Monfils
Category C	Ivo Karlović			Nick Kyrgios	Philipp Kohlschreiber
Category D	Edouard Roger-Vasselin		Ivan Dodig
Legends	Mark Philippoussis James Blake	Goran Ivanišević	Fabrice Santoro	Carlos Moyá	Marat Safin Thomas Enqvist
Doubles players	Treat Huey	Daniel Nestor	Rohan Bopanna	Marcelo Melo	Leander Paes
Uncategorized	Somdev Devvarman			Dustin Brown	Pierre-Hugues Herbert
Women
Icon players	Serena Williams				Maria Sharapova
Category A		Ana Ivanovic	Agnieszka Radwańska
Category B			Samantha Stosur	Belinda Bencic	Mirjana Lučić-Baroni
Category C	Ajla Tomljanović	Kristina Mladenovic	Svetlana Kuznetsova	Karolína Plíšková
Category D	Jarmila Gajdošová		Sania Mirza		Kirsten Flipkens
Uncategorized					Kurumi Nara

Calendar

Round	Date	Location	Stadium	Capacity
1	December 2–4	Kobe	Kobe World Hall	8,000
2	December 6–8	Manila	Mall of Asia Arena	20,000
3	December 10–12	New Delhi	Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium	14,348
4	December 14–16	Dubai	Aviation Club Tennis Centre	8,000
5	December 18–20	Singapore	Singapore Indoor Stadium	12,000

Results

Round	Location	Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2
1	Kobe	2 December	UAE Royals	26–20	Singapore Slammers
		2 December	Japan Warriors	24–25	Indian Aces
		3 December	Philippine Mavericks	24–26	Singapore Slammers
		3 December	Japan Warriors	15–30	UAE Royals
		4 December	Singapore Slammers	22–27	Indian Aces
		4 December	Japan Warriors	24–28	Philippine Mavericks
2	Manila	6 December	Japan Warriors	20–29	Singapore Slammers
		6 December	UAE Royals	18–29	Philippine Mavericks
		7 December	Indian Aces	30–18	UAE Royals
		7 December	Japan Warriors	21–25	Philippine Mavericks
		8 December	Singapore Slammers	23–26	UAE Royals
		8 December	Indian Aces	24–25	Philippine Mavericks
3	New Delhi	10 December	Japan Warriors	24–21	UAE Royals
		10 December	Philippine Mavericks	12–30	Indian Aces
		11 December	Singapore Slammers	30–23	Philippine Mavericks
		11 December	Japan Warriors	21–26	Indian Aces
		12 December	Japan Warriors	22–24	Singapore Slammers
		12 December	UAE Royals	19–30	Indian Aces
4	Dubai	14 December	Indian Aces	25–18	Japan Warriors
		14 December	UAE Royals	24–26	Philippine Mavericks
		15 December	Indian Aces	24–23	Philippine Mavericks
		15 December	Singapore Slammers	27–24	UAE Royals
		16 December	Indian Aces	16–27	Singapore Slammers
		16 December	Japan Warriors	22–26	UAE Royals
5	Singapore	18 December	Japan Warriors	29–15	Philippine Mavericks
		18 December	UAE Royals	27–23	Singapore Slammers
		19 December	UAE Royals	23–24	Philippine Mavericks
		19 December	Indian Aces	21–27	Singapore Slammers
		20 December Final	Singapore Slammers	26–21	Indian Aces

Results table

Abbreviation and Color Key: Indian Aces (IND) • Philippine Mavericks (PHI) • Singapore Slammers (SIN) • UAE Royals (UAE) • Japan Warriors (JAP) Win • Loss • Home • Away • Neutral
Team	Match
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
	Dec 2	Dec 3	Dec 4	Dec 6	Dec 7	Dec 8	Dec 10	Dec 11	Dec 12	Dec 14	Dec 15	Dec 16	Dec 18	Dec 19	Dec 20
Indian Aces ( 2015 season )	JAP	free day	SIN	free day	UAE	PHI	PHI	JAP	UAE	JAP	PHI	SIN	free day	SIN	SIN
	25–24		27–22		30–18	24–25	30–12	26–21	30–19	25–18	24–23	16–27		21–27	21–26
Philippine Mavericks ( 2015 season )	free day	SIN	JAP	UAE	JAP	IND	IND	SIN	free day	UAE	IND	free day	JAP	UAE	4th
		24–26	28–24	29–18	25–21	25–24	12–30	22–30		26–24	23–24		15–29	24–23
Singapore Slammers ( 2015 season )	UAE	PHI	IND	JAP	free day	UAE	free day	PHI	JAP	free day	UAE	IND	UAE	IND	IND
	20–26	26–24	22–27	29–20		23–26		30–22	24–22		27–24	27–16	23–27	27–21	26–21
UAE Royals ( 2015 season )	SIN	JAP	free day	PHI [1]	IND	SIN	JAP	free day	IND	PHI	SIN	JAP	SIN	PHI	3rd
	26–20	30–15		18–29	18–30	26–23	21–24		19–30	24–26	24–27	26–22	27–23	23–24
Japan Warriors ( 2015 season )	IND	UAE	PHI	SIN	PHI	free day	UAE	IND	SIN	IND	free day	UAE	PHI	free day	5th
	24–25	15–30	24–28	20–29	21–25		24–21	21–26	22–24	18–25		22–26	29–15

Notes

• ¹ Due to the odd number of teams through this Season, one team plays an extra match. That team will be allowed to drop their score on any one match through the Season provided they inform this intent soon after the match is completed. This Season, the team that plays the extra match is the Obi UAE Royals. The Obi UAE Royals have chosen to drop their score on the match played against the Philippine Mavericks on December 6, 2015 in Manila. The score for the Philippine Mavericks however does count towards their Win Percentage.

Standings

Standings are determined by percentage of games won. Top two teams qualify for final.

P	Team	MP	W	L	GW	GL	G%
1	Indian Aces	11	8	3	278	236	54.09%
2	Singapore Slammers	11	7	4	278	255	52.16%
3	UAE Royals	11	5	6	264	264	50%
4	Philippine Mavericks	11	6	5	253	273	48.1%
5	Japan Warriors	11	2	9	240	274	46.69%

Position summary

The following table shows the day-by-day position of each team in the league standings.

Team	D1	D2	D3	D4	D5	D6	D7	D8	D9	D10	D11	D12	D13	D14	D15/Final
Philippine Mavericks	X	4	3	1	2	1	2	4	4	4	3	4	4	4	X
UAE Royals	1	1	1	2	3	3	3	3	3	3	4	3	3	3	X
Indian Aces	2	2	2	3	1	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2
Japan Warriors	3	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	X
Singapore Slammers	4	3	4	4	4	4	4	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1

Teams head-to-head

2015 International Premier Tennis League season

#	Team	Ind. Aces	Mavericks	Slammers	Royals	Warriors	2015 season	All seasons
1	Indian Aces		2–1	1–2	2–0	3–0	8–3	16–7
2	Philippine Mavericks	1–2		0–2	3–0	2–1	6–5	12–11
3	Singapore Slammers	2–1	2–0		1–3	2–0	7–4	10–13
4	UAE Royals	0–2	0–2	3–1		2–1	5–6	12–11
5	Japan Warriors	0–3	1–2	0–2	1–2		2–9	First season

Final

The final was held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on 20 December In Singapore.

After an 18-day 5-nation tour the Indian Aces, with 8 eight wins out of 11 this season, and the Singapore Slammers, last on the league table in first edition, but finishing a strong second this season, played the final of a prize money of USD 1 million (USD 500,000 for the runners-up), which was won by the Slammers 26-21.

The Most Valuable Player (MVP) (Male) for IPTL 2015 was Ivan Dodig (Aces) whilst Belinda Bencic (Slammers) was adjudged the MVP (Female) for their performances through the season.

On behalf of the League, Founder and Managing Director, Mahesh Bhupathi said “We got off to a great start last year, added another team in the second year, were broadcast in 155 countries across the world – so it speaks well for the success for the IPTL. Next year is an Olympic year, so I don’t see us adding another team, but we’ll continue building on from here.”

What the Players said:

Stan Wawrinka: “Do not be fooled: everybody knows why we play this event." ^[2]

Marcelo Melo: “Stan asked to play with me, which was great. He’s such a great player. I think he helped me more today than I helped him! It was great to have him as my doubles partner today!”

Nick Kyrgios: “Last year we had some good players but I don't think we had the same chemistry as a team, to be honest. We all got along pretty well from day one. Our energy on the bench was great and when we lost we supported each other and came back each day and gave our best. Every game counts so that was key. My team as a whole worked a lot better together this year.” He added, “For me this is a massive opportunity to be in the same team with Stan - Grand Slam Champion, Marcelo - number one doubles player in the world, Carlos - one of the greatest players to have ever played. For me sitting on the bench its massive watching them and seeing how they train. The relationships I now have. That's priceless!”

Dustin Brown: “It's been great. I watched IPTL last year on my TV so to be part of it this year it’s been great. Ii was very happy when I got the call after Wimbledon. Our team bonded really well and to be on personal terms with guys I used to only see on TV or play on the Play Station, is fantastic. It's great to be able to call these guys and ask for help. We have a really good chemistry on and off the court and that definitely made the difference in us getting the win today.”

Belinda Bencic: “I had a great year and I am very happy to have been in this position. It really helps me with next year and my preparations. I am really looking forward to 2016 and I'd like to be back for the IPTL.”

Final
All Matches
Event	Singapore Slammers	Indian Aces	Score	Score after set
Legends' Singles	Carlos Moyá	Fabrice Santoro	6–4	6–4
Women's Singles	Belinda Bencic	Svetlana Kuznetsova	6–5(7–3)	12–9
Mixed Doubles	Dustin Brown Karolína Plíšková	Sania Mirza Rohan Bopanna	2–6	14–15
Men's Singles	Stanislas Wawrinka	Bernard Tomic	6–3	20–18
Men's Doubles	Marcelo Melo Stanislas Wawrinka	Rohan Bopanna Ivan Dodig	6–3	26–21
Final score
Total score	Singapore Slammers	Indian Aces	26–21

References

1. "IPTL format". Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-12-04.
2. "Wawrinka: «Je vis un moment exceptionnel de ma carrière»". 24heures.ch/. Retrieved 2015-12-20.

External links

• International Premier Tennis League official website