US Open Champion Flavia Pennetta to Play For Mumbai in Champions Tennis League

Italy's newly-crowned US Open women's singles champion Flavia Pennetta will play for Mumbai Masters at the 2015 Champions Tennis League (CTL), along with 1996 Wimbledon men's champion Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands following the players' draft held here on Wednesday. (Flavia Pennetta clinches US Open title)

The second edition of the CTL, the brainchild of former Indian Davis Cup captain Vijay Amritraj, is scheduled from November 23 to December 6, an increase of four days from last year's ten-day duration, it was announced at a media conference after the players' draft.

This year too the tournament would be held among six city-based franchises out of which five -- Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and new entrants Raipur and Nagpur -- have been identified.

The sixth, which is a toss-up among Pune, Chennai and Bengaluru, would be chosen within a week to 10 days, Amritraj said. The champions outfit would win Rs one crore and the runners-up Rs 50 lakh.

Kevin Anderson of South Africa, who beat Andy Murray of Briton in the US Open where he made the quarter-finals, and the world's tallest player - Ivo Karlovic - of Croatia who holds a 3-1 career win-loss record against world no. 1 Novak Djokovic, would play for new entrants Team Raipur and last year's participants Hyderabad Aces respectively.

Among other notable men's players who would play in the tournament to be held in six cities, including Mumbai where the inaugural match is scheduled on November 23, are Andreas Seppi of Italy (Mumbai), Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis (Punjab Marshalls, Chandigarh), along with French professionals Feliciano Lopez (Team Nagpur) and Fernando Verdasco (for the undecided team).

The top women professionals who would take part apart from Pennetta are five-time Grand Slam women's singles winner Martina Hingis of Switzerland (Hyderabad), a former world no. 1 and current doubles partner of India's Sania Mirza, Serb Jelena Jankovic (Nagpur), France's Alize Cornet (Raipur), Ukraine's Elina Svitolina (Chandigarh) and Heather Watson of Britain who would play for the sixth outfit in the League.

While each of the three teams which took part in the first edition last year and are continuing this year --Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chandigarh -- had the option of retaining one player, only Hyderabad did so by retaining Hingis.

Amritraj explained that some minor changes have been made to the format of the matches so that they fit into the time slot of two and a half hours', suitable for broadcasters Sony Six.

"Last year, when we had two matches per day and most of the matches were close, each day play got extended upto three and a half hours or more. So we had to make some changes so that this time around only one match (tie) will be held per day with a 7 PM start and an expected 9:30-9:45 PM end," the former Wimbledon men's singles quarter finalist said. "Each match would comprise one set only (same as last year) but this year the set would be played to 5 games instead of 6. Sets can be won from 5-0 to 5-4 and if it's 4-all a 9-point tie-break would be held," he said.

The format remains the same: Legends' singles, ATP players' singles, WTA players' singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles.

Similar to the first edition, each team will have one Indian senior men's player in its rolls, along with two juniors - a boy and a girl - recommended by the All India Tennis Association as per their rankings. The senior players who would be seen are Saket Myneni (Chandigarh), Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (Hyderabad), Sriram Balaji (Mumbai), Divij Sharan (Nagpur), Ramkumar Ramanathan (Raipur) and Vishnu Vardhan (unnamed team).