The Indian Aces were a

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

team based in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, India that competed in the

International Premier Tennis League The International Premier Tennis League (IPTL, officially the Coca-Cola International Premier Tennis League Presented by Qatar Airways pursuant to sponsorship agreements with The Coca-Cola Company and Qatar Airways) was an annual team tennis leagu ...

(IPTL). It is one of the four charter franchises which had participated in the IPTL's inaugural 2014 season and are champions of the first edition.

Team history

Founding of franchise

On 21 January 2014, IPTL announced that one of the charter franchises for the league inaugural 2014 season would be based in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. On 19 June 2014, an IPTL

press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

revealed to the

general public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

that the owner of the Indian franchise was Micromax Informatics Ltd. which preferred to have the team play its home matches in

and not in Mumbai. A group called PVP Ventures led by

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

Prasad V Potluri and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

legend

Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (; ; born 24 April 1973) is an Indian former international cricketer who captained the Indian national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the all time highest run-scor ...

had been the original franchise owners with a plan to play home matches in Mumbai. While league managing director

Mahesh Bhupathi Mahesh Shrinivas Bhupathi (born 7 June 1974) is an Indian former doubles world No. 1 tennis player. In 1997, he became the first Indian to win a major tournament (with Rika Hiraki). With his win at the 2006 Australian Open mixed doubles, he ...

said PVP Ventures had been replaced by Micromax, because PVP missed a payment deadline, PVP said it had withdrawn from the league due to lack of clarity over how IPTL's business model was progressing and disagreements over player contracts. PVP did not want the team to be solely responsible for payment of player salaries and favored the league being obligated as well.

Inaugural draft

The Mumbai franchise (as the Aces were still known at the time) participated in the IPTL inaugural draft on 2 March 2014, in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

Team name

By May 2014, the team had been named the Indian Aces.

Home venue

On 25 July 2014, the Aces announced that their home matches would be played at

Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium The K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall, formerly known as the Indraprashtha Stadium and Indira Gandhi Arena (officially Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium), is located at the Indraprastha Estate in the eastern region of New Delhi. It is the largest indoor sp ...

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 w ...

First coach

On 27 October 2014,

Fabrice Santoro Fabrice Vetea Santoro (born 9 December 1972) is a French retired tennis player. Successful in both singles and doubles, he had an unusually long professional career, with many of his accomplishments coming toward the end of his career, and he is ...

was named the Aces' first coach.

Inaugural season

On 28 November 2014, the Aces defeated the

Singapore Slammers The Singapore Slammers (officially the DBS Singapore Slammers pursuant to a sponsorship agreement with DBS Bank) were a tennis team based in the city state of Singapore that competed in the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL). It is one of ...

, 26–16, in the first match in IPTL history.

Rohan Bopanna Rohan Bopanna ( ; born 4 March 1980) is an Indian professional tennis player. His tennis singles, singles career-high ranking was world No. 213 in 2007 and his career-high ranking in doubles was world No. 3 on 22 July 2013. He has been a member ...

served the first point of the league's inaugural match. They went on to be the champion of the 2014 International Premier Tennis League

Television coverage

On 16 October 2014, IPTL announced it had reached an agreement for the Indian television broadcasting rights with

STAR Sports Star Sports refers to several current or former Asian sports networks owned by The Walt Disney Company: * Star Sports (East Asian TV channel) * Star Sports (Indian TV network) * Fox Sports (Southeast Asian TV network) Fox Sports (formerly ESPN ...

Sponsorship

According to the Aces'

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

Micromax Micromax (Scott Wright) is a fictional character, a mutant superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Publication history Micromax was created by Alan Davis and first appeared in ''Excalibur'' #44 (Dec. 1991). ...

was the team's title sponsor in the 2014 edition.

Current roster

Roger Federer Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players#Weeks at No. 1, world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, in ...

Feliciano López Feliciano López Díaz-Guerra (; born 20 September 1981) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high singles ranking of world No. 12 in March 2015 and doubles ranking of world No. 9 in November 2016.In 2005, López was t ...

Eugenie Bouchard Eugenie "Genie" Bouchard (; french: Eugénie Bouchard, ; born February 25, 1994) is a Canadian tennis player. At the 2014 Wimbledon Championships, she became the first Canadian-born player representing Canada to reach the final of a Grand Slam t ...

Sania Mirza Sania Mirza (; born 15 November 1986) is an Indian professional tennis player. A former doubles world No. 1, she has won six major titles – three in women's doubles and three in mixed doubles. From 2003 until her retirement from singles in ...

Thomas Enqvist Thomas Karl Johan Enqvist (born 13 March 1974) is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He reached the final of the 1999 Australian Open – Men's singles, 1999 Australian Open and won a total of 19 singles titles, including three ATP Tou ...

Mark Philippoussis Mark Anthony Philippoussis ( ; born 7 November 1976) is an Australian former professional tennis player of Greek and Italian descent. Philippoussis' greatest achievements are winning two Davis Cup titles with Australia in 1999 and 2003, winni ...

Ivan Dodig Ivan Dodig (; born 2 January 1985) is a Croatian professional tennis player who primarily specialises in doubles. He is a six-time Grand Slam champion, having won men's doubles titles at the 2015 French Open with Marcelo Melo, and the 2021 Aus ...

References

External links

* {{Tennis box International Premier Tennis League teams 01 Micromax Mobile Aces Sports clubs established in 2014 2014 establishments in Delhi