The Champions Tennis League (CTL) was a

team tennis Team tennis is a tennis tournament which consist of matches between different groups of players each competing to win the tournament for their team. The format is usually an altered version of the professionally played World TeamTennis format; con ...

tournament in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

held two times only in November 2014 and in late 2015, across six Indian cities. The first edition of Champions Tennis League was held from 17 to 26 November 2014, across

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

, and

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which a ...

. The second edition was held from 23 November to 6 December 2015.

Background

The Champions Tennis League is a professional tennis league held in

where the team captains are

Grand Slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...

veterans and the players are among the best in the world. It is a privately owned tennis league, owned and operated by

Vijay Amritraj Vijay Amritraj (born 14 December 1953) is an Indian sports commentator, actor and retired professional tennis player from Madras. He was awarded the Padma Shri, India's 4th highest civilian honour, in 1983.In 2022, he was honored for his cont ...

's sports management company Second Serve Pvt. Ltd., which operates other integrated sports and entertainment formats in India and overseas.

Format

The player draft for each season of CTL is conducted without an auction with each team picking four players from a pool of 24. The pool consists of six legends, six international ATP players, six international WTA players, and six Indian players. Each CTL team features an ATP and WTA player, an international legend as their playing captain, a noted Indian male tennis player, plus a top ranked junior Indian girl and boy. The league consists of six teams, split into two zones. Each zone has three teams, with each team playing the other two teams on a home and away basis to decide the zonal standings. Two teams competing against each other is called a tie. The teams with the highest number of games (not sets) won in their respective zones will advance to the final, where they play each other for the Champions Tennis League trophy. Apart from the Champions Tennis League Cup, two individual awards are given out: the Robert Amritraj award and the Margaret Amritraj award. The Robert Amritraj award is given to the Most Valuable Player (MVP) who has won the most games throughout the tournament, while the Margaret Amritraj award is given to the best Indian player in the tournament, who has won the most games among the Indian players.

2014 format

In 2014, the CTL saw 13 matches played over a 10-day period between 17 and 26 November. Each tie consisted of 5 sets, with each considered as a match. The winner of a match was the player / doubles team that won 6 games. The winner of the tie was the team that won the highest number of games across all 5 sets. The winners' prize money was Rs. 1 crore, while the runner-up prize was Rs. 50 lakhs.

2015 format

The 2015 edition of CTL was announced by

on 23 September 2015, at a press conference in Mumbai. The press conference also saw the draft of the players into each team. In 2015, CTL featured six city based teams across India and saw 13 matches played over a 2-week period between 23 November and 6 December. The winners' prize money was

Rs. Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...

1 crore, while the runner-up prize was

lakhs A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ...

. Each tie will consist of 5 sets with each set being considered as a match. Unlike the 2014 edition, the winner of a match was the player/doubles team that wins 5 games, not 6. The winner of the tie was the team that wins the highest number of games across all 5 sets.

Editions

2014 Champions Tennis League

The first edition of Champions Tennis League was held for 10-day period between 17 and 26 November 2014. The tournament started in

, progressed through

, before closing out with the finals in Delhi. ;Final

2015 Champions Tennis League

The second edition of Champions Tennis League was held for two weeks between 23 November to 6 December 2015. The tournament started in

, progressed through

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

Raipur Raipur ( ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Raipur is also the administrative headquarters of Raipur district and Raipur division, and the largest city of the state. It was a part of Madhya Pradesh before the state of Ch ...

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nagpur is projected to ...

, before closing out with the finals in

. ;Final

Broadcast

In India, all Champions Tennis League matches broadcast live on Sony SIX HD and Sony KIX, who have the exclusive broadcasting rights for the event in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. The

Tennis Channel Tennis Channel is an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by the Sinclair Television Group subsidiary of the Sinclair Broadcast Group. It is devoted to events and other programming related to the game of ...

, shall broadcast Champions Tennis League across the USA.

References

External links

* {{tennis box Tennis tournaments in India 2014 establishments in India Recurring sporting events established in 2014 2015 disestablishments in India Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2015