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Smart Araneta Coliseum chosen as International Premier Tennis League venue

UPDATED - The Philippines' most iconic sports venue is set to host the world's greatest tennis stars come November.

Mahesh Bhupathi, the founder of the International Premier Tennis League, informed Yahoo! Philippines on Friday that the Big Dome has been chosen to host the inaugural weekend of the IPTL on November 28, 29, and 30.

Andy Murray of Scotland is slated to play for the Philippine franchise, known as the Manila Mavericks, against the other leading lights of tennis in a unique, round-robin team format.

Veterans like Goran Ivanisevic, and Patrick Rafter will also take part alongside top ladies players like Ana Ivanovic and Dane Caroline Wozniacki.

Bhupathi says Murray is sure to play in Manila alongside Victoria Azarenka, Carlos Moya, and Fil-am Treat Huey. Filipino fans will see them duke it out with Caroline Wozniacki, Richard Gasquet, Lleyton Hewitt, and Tomas Berdych. Ivanovic and Gael Monfils will also come to Manila.

According to Bhupathi, the doubles specialist who won several grand slam titles with countryman Leander Paes, there will be a Manila press conference on July 24 where even more information will be revealed about the event, including ticket prices and availability. Bhupathi says sales should commence right after the press conference.

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The Smart Araneta Coliseum has hosted numerous sports events over the years but is still probably most famous for the “Thrilla in Manila” in 1975, when Muhammad Ali defeated Joe Frazier via TKO in front of a sellout crowd.

The IPTL will feature four matchdates on each of the host cities, namely Manila, Dubai, Mumbai, and Singapore. The league will be a single round-robin affair with two ties per night. Every team plays on every game day.

Each tie will be a five set match with one set apiece for men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, mixed doubles, and a past champion singles for the likes of Agassi and Ivanisevic.

There will be “no-ad” scoring (that presumably means no more deuces) and a shot clock to speed up the action, plus the team that wins the number of games, not sets wins the tie. 7-point tiebreakers will be played at 5-5 instead of 6-6.

The team with more games after the five sets gets four points added to their total in the standings. If the losing team gets 20 or more games in the match, they receive two bonus points as a consolation. If the losing team wins more than ten but less than 20, the team gets one point. If the losing team cannot muster more than ten points then they get no points added to their total.

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In the event of a tie, a seven point men's singles tiebreaker will be played to decide the winning team. The result counts as a game point won.

Each team can call for a “Power Point” once in a single set match while on the receiver's side. The “Power Point” is worth two points, so a player down 15-0 can call for a “Power Point” and leapfrog his opponent to take a 30-15 lead on a single rally if he wins.

The format is more fully explained via this video on Youtube.

“The IPTL format will be very attractive to broadcasters and fans alike” says Bhupathi. “We have changed the traditional scoring format to single-set no-ad scoring which will speed up the games and allow us to expose the fans to up to 24 different players in one evening while the broadcasters for the first time will be able to schedule predictable starting and finishing times for each match.”

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Bhupathi says his brainchild is meant to take the lead of the Indian Premier Cricket League, which has made similar tweak to make that sport more appealing.

The Manila Mavericks will enjoy the services of not only Murray, a Wimbledon and US Open champ, but also Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, Belarussian Victoria Azarenka, Moya and Filipino-American Treat Huey.

The Singapore Slammers will rely on Serena Williams of the United States, and Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. It is not yet known which legs Williams will play in.

The UAE Royals' ace is Djokovic, and he will be joined by Martina Hingis and Wozniacki. Djokovic, however is not scheduled to suit up in Manila.

Mumbai's squad, nicknamed “The Aces” will be spearheaded by Spanish legend Rafa Nadal, who unfortunately will also not play in Manila . Homegrown players Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna will also play for the Indian side.

IPTL does say though that not every player on every team will be available for all the legs.

The winning team after four legs receives US$1,000,000 in prize money.

Bhupathi was delighted to learn that the first article on the IPTL that came out on Yahoo! Philippines was recommended/shared 35,000 times on Facebook, more than eleven times more than the next most shared post on the Passionate Fan blog in the two years of its existence.

Follow Bob on Twitter @PassionateFanPH. Follow the IPTL @iptl.