The National's Sport cover for the Friday, September 11 issue, featuring Roger Federer and Ana Ivanovic along with four other tennis stars signed up for the UAE Royals.
The two major names of the sport will be joined by Tomas Berdych, Kristina Mladenovic, Goran Ivanisevic and Daniel Nestor for the second season of the International Premier Tennis League.
Ali Khaled writes of the development for the Dubai-based club in the experimental team tennis league:
“When the inaugural International Premier Tennis League was announced last year it was met with a fair amount of scepticism and concerns it would be nothing more than a few glorified exhibition matches at the end of an already packed ATP season.
“It proved a lot more exciting than that, with fans packing stadiums to watch the world’s best players taking part for the four Asia-based franchises. The players seemed to enjoy it with Serena Williams calling it ‘one of the best experiences of my life’.”
Said founder Mahesh Bhupathi:
“Last year was our first year and obviously there were a lot of questions asked. We had some teething issues, but overall the league went off pretty well. We had a lot of success in terms of getting the big names to play.”
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