Team: | Indian Aces |
Sport: | Team tennis |
Current: | 2014 Indian Aces season |
Folded: | 2016 |
League: | International Premier Tennis League |
History: | 2014–2016 |
Stadium: | Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium |
City: | New Delhi, Delhi, India |
Colors: | Orange, India Green |
Owner: | Siddhesh Sharma |
Coach: | Fabrice Santoro |
Championships: | 1 (2014) |
Broadcasters: | STAR Sports |
The Indian Aces were a tennis team based in New Delhi, India that competed in the International Premier Tennis League (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.[1]
On 21 January 2014, IPTL announced that one of the charter franchises for the league inaugural 2014 season would be based in Mumbai.[2] [3] On 19 June 2014, an IPTL press release[4] revealed to the general public that the owner of the Indian franchise was Micromax Informatics Ltd. which preferred to have the team play its home matches in New Delhi and not in Mumbai. A group called PVP Ventures led by entrepreneur Prasad V Potluri and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar had been the original franchise owners with a plan to play home matches in Mumbai.[5] While league managing director Mahesh Bhupathi said PVP Ventures had been replaced by Micromax, because PVP missed a payment deadline, PVP said it had withdrawn from the league due to lack of clarity over how IPTL's business model was progressing and disagreements over player contracts.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.[6]
The Mumbai franchise (as the Aces were still known at the time) participated in the IPTL inaugural draft on 2 March 2014, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.[7]
Player | IPTL Category | |
---|---|---|
Men | ||
Icon players | ||
Icon players | ||
Category B | ||
Past champions | ||
Doubles players | ||
Women | ||
Category B | ||
Category D |
By May 2014, the team had been named the Indian Aces.[8]
On 25 July 2014, the Aces announced that their home matches would be played at Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi, Delhi.
On 27 October 2014, Fabrice Santoro was named the Aces' first coach.[9]
See main article: 2014 Indian Aces season. On 28 November 2014, the Aces defeated the Singapore Slammers, 26–16, in the first match in IPTL history.[10] Rohan Bopanna served the first point of the league's inaugural match.[11]
They went on to be the champion of the 2014 International Premier Tennis League
On 16 October 2014, IPTL announced it had reached an agreement for the Indian television broadcasting rights with STAR Sports.[12]
According to the Aces' website,[13] Micromax was the team's title sponsor in the 2014 edition.