First international team-based tennis tournament

The inaugural International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) tournament ran from 28 November to 13 December 2014 and featured 21 Grand Slam champions and 14 current or former world number ones doing battle for one of four Asian-based franchises - Indian Aces, Manila Mavericks, Singapore Slammers and UAE Royals - in four countries. The innovative format, modelled on the long-running World TeamTennis league and designed to bring more top-level tennis to Asia, comprised 24 matches consisting of five sets (one each in men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, mixed doubles and men's legends' singles), with points awarded for each game won. The event introduced Asian tennis fans to a number of unconventional tennis rules, including a five-minute shoot-out at five games all instead of a tie-break, "power points" that counted double, time-outs and a 20-second shot clock between points. The first IPTL tournament was won by the Indian Aces (featuring the likes of Roger Federer, Pete Sampras and Ana Ivanovic), with team members collecting a cool $1 million (£636,116) for eight wins and 39 points from 12 matches. The format of the IPTL is based on World TeamTennis (WTT), which celebrated its 40th season in 2015 (1974-78, 1981-present). WTT features seven US-based teams (as opposed to the international format of the IPTL) of professional and amateur tennis players in Eastern and Western Conferences. The WTT player roster in 2014 included Victoria Azarenka, Marion Bartoli, Bob and Mike Bryan, Martina Hingis, John Isner, Andy Roddick and Venus Williams.

The final standings for the inaugural IPTL competition were:

1. Micromax Indian Aces (Rohan Bopanna, Roger Federer, Ana Ivanovic, Sania Mirza, Gael Monfils, Pete Sampras, Fabrice Santoro) - won 8, lost 4, 39 points

2. Musafir.com UAE Royals (Marin Cilic, Novak Djokovic, Goran Ivanisevic, Malek Jaziri, Kristina Mladenovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Nenad Zimonjic) - won 7, lost 5, 37 points

3. Manila Mavericks (Kirsten Flipkens, Treat Huey, Carlos Moya, Andy Murray, Daniel Nestor, Maria Sharapova, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga) - won 6, lost 6, 35 points

4. DBS Singapore Slammers (Andre Agassi, Tomas Berdych, Daniela Hantuchova, Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios, Pat Rafter, Bruno Soares, Serena Williams) - won 3, lost 9, 24 points

Dates and venues for the four legs of the 2014 tournament were:

28-30 November 2014 - Mall of Asia Arena, Pasay, Philippines

2-4 December 2014 - Singapore Indoor Stadium, Kallang, Singapore

6-8 December 2014 - Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, New Delhi, India

11-13 December 2014 - Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Sports Complex, Dubai, UAE

Total prize money for the tournament was reportedly $29.7 million (£18.8 million), with $1 million (£636,116) alone for the winning team.

The IPTL was founded by Grand Slam winner Mahesh Bhupathi (India) with the promise to "'break the code' of the game's traditional etiquette in order to attract a new audience to the sport".

Tournament organizers claimed that the 2014 edition of the IPTL "reached" more than 300 million households in more than 125 countries.