The International Premier Tennis League (ITPL) is a lawn tennis competition whose first edition was held in 2014. The tournament was inspired by the format of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a cricket tournament.
The tournament follows a club format where players from different nations represent a franchise. Each match comprises of five-sets and each set is played in a men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and past champions’ singles format.
The coach of the home team decides the format in which each set will be played. In case the match is played at a neutral venue, then the decision will be made based on a coin toss. Each game is played in a no-ad format. This means that the point after deuce (40-40) will decide the winner of the game. The receiver can also opt to use a power point once per set. This means if the receiver is trailing, then they can call a power point. Should they win this point, they get two points for it. Each game carries one point. At the end of five sets, the team which has won the most games wins the match.
If the set score is 5-5, then a five-minute shoot-out decides the set. At the end of the fifth set, if the score is tied, then a seven-minute men’s singles shootout decides the outcome of the match. If the team that is trailing in the match wins the fifth set, then the leading team has to win only one game in the overtime sudden-death. If the team that is trailing wins without losing any games, then a seven-minutes men’s singles shootout decides the outcome.
Players are given 20 seconds between two points in a game and three minutes between sets. The team that is trailing before the fifth set is allowed to make one substitution for the fifth set. The winner of each match received 4 points. If the losing team has won 20 game points then they receive 2 points. If they have won between 10 to 20 game points, they receive 1 point. If the losing team has won less than 10 game points, they do not receive any point.
At the end of the tournament, the champion team is decided based on the final standings. If there is a tie in these standings, then winners are decided based on the following priority: head-to-head result, number of games won, number of games lost, biggest games margin in a single match win, coin toss.
Winners receive a prize money of USD $1,000,000. Indian Aces won the inaugural edition whereas the next two seasons were won by Singapore Slammers. The tournament has not been contested since 2016 due to financial and sponsorship constraints.
