IPTL: A farce of premier proportions?

Andy Murray (L) with Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna (R)

It might as well be the era of ‘premier leagues’ in the minds of all Indians who have even the slightest intention of carving a niche in the sports world. The initiation and the subsequent rise of the IPL have perpetuated a never-ending chain of league-based sporting events by Indian proponents, the latest of which is the IPTL (International Premier Tennis League).

A concept propounded by Indian doubles specialist Mahesh Bhupathi, the IPTL is touted to be a revolutionary development for the sport in an otherwise enthusiastic-yet-underdeveloped market in Asia. So far it has attracted and generated a lot of interest among many of the top-ranked tennis players – both past and present – who have committed to play in the tournament to be held in the off-season period between November and December across the four franchise cities.

But as things stand now, the IPTL seems to have more cons than pros. Here’s a look at the biggest potential problems that surround the tournament:

Addition to the tennis calendar would exacerbate player fatigue even further

Let’s start with the whole IPTL scheduling issue that would surely curtail the recovery and recuperating time of the players in an already jam-packed season. It’s almost ludicrous to even suggest a further increase in the players’ workload, but that’s precisely what the IPTL promises to do. The fact that some of the star players – most prominently Rafael Nadal – lined up to play in the tournament already have severe fitness issues makes their earlier calls to make the tennis calendar more compact seem hollow.

For players who have niggling problems with their fitness, the IPTL would in all likelihood tantamount to being a source of hindrance rather than a source of overall qualitative enhancement to the sport, specially considering that the Australian Open would be just weeks away during the course of the event.

The tournament entails a highly inconvenient travel schedule

Even if the issue of fitness and physical injuries are ignored for the time being, the aspect of having home-and-away based games shuttling between Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore and Bangkok still seems to be a problem in terms of travel fatigue. More so for the top-ranked players who not only balance their international commitments for an entire full season, but also their national level commitments of playing the Davis Cup and Fed Cup.

To draw comparison between the originator of the concept – the IPL – there are so many instances where cricketers have been unable to even out both the formats of the sport and have gone on to become really poor jugglers, struggling to strike the right balance between the two.

Cricket however is a team sport and teams do manage to find the wherewithal to come up with substitutes wherever they are needed. But tennis is far different from the team sport, holding a unique place of pride amongst individually contested sporting domains. Taking a chance on such an event – despite its attraction – is thus nothing short of a gamble, with no one but the player standing to lose the most.