Well that was fun. The Dubai leg of the International Premier Tennis League concluded on Wednesday with the highlight undoubtedly Roger Federer and Andy Murray slugging it out on Tuesday night, roared on by a noisy, boisterous crowd — exactly what the IPTL should be.
At every opportunity, the players insisted this new format of team tennis, with substitutions, timeouts, and countdown clocks, was “fun” and “competitive”.
Yet less than 24 hours earlier Federer, the world No 3, had played in front of a sparse crowd of barely a few hundred.
On that opening night there was the unavoidable sense that this event had gone under the radar. Indeed some local tennis fans who say they never miss the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, also held at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, confessed to knowing very little about the IPTL. It could explain why arguably the greatest tennis player of all time was playing in front of row after row of empty seats.
Although this staging of the IPTL was an improvement on last year’s event, held at the Hamdan Sports Complex, which was largely ignored by the public, more can be done to raise awareness of this fledging competition through better advertising.
The question of competitiveness may have been put to bed by the players, but to many fans this remains an end-of-season exhibition tournament, with nothing much riding on the results. The IPTL has to better promote the competitive edge to the tournament.
The timing of the matches did not help. In fairness to the organisers, though, the schedule of the 2015 IPTL, with one rest day between each leg, necessitates that the action in some cities will fall in midweek. Some cities, such as New Delhi, have embraced the IPTL quicker than others.
“When Roger played Rafa in the Delhi leg we had about 15,000 people at the stadium,” said Virat Kohli, co-owner of the UAE Royals. “Those kinds of crowds, it was very difficult to think of back home before.”
Then there is the issue of familiarity and perceptions. The IPTL was set up to bring top-class tennis to new, Asian audiences. But just maybe, thanks to the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, not to mention the year-end Mubadala World Tennis Championship held in Abu Dhabi, fans have started to take for granted access to watching the world’s best players.
“When these stars come and play that’s when the sport gets even more attention,” Kohli said. “That’s eventually what fans want, they want to see Roger, [Rafael] Nadal, [Tomas] Berdych, all these players playing in the same leg. I think it’s a great opportunity for the fans to see what they’ve always wanted.”
The IPTL has some way to go to rival other major team events such as the Davis Cup, yet it does provide match-ups unlikely to be seen elsewhere.
“That’s the cool thing,” said Murray, the world No 2 and captain of the Singapore Slammers. “I played Roger once in doubles but like 10 years ago, so I may never get the chance to do that again. Same last year I got the chance to play against Serena [Williams] in mixed. It’s really nice to do that because if it wasn’t for an event like this it may never happen.”
The progress report for the Dubai IPTL 2015 will read: Marked improvement, but could do better next year.
akhaled@thenational.ae
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