Pro Tennis League 2019: New season, better opportunities

The second edition of the Pro Tennis League (PTL) will begin in Delhi on December 20 and the likes of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Arjun Kadhe can be seen in action.

Sriram Balaji (L) will play for Sankara Aces, while Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan will feature for Haryana Sapphires in PTL season two

Some of the leading players of the country - Ramkumar Ramanathan, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Sriram Balaji, Vishnu Vardhan, Vijay  Sundar Prashantha and Arjun Kadhe - will be in action in the second edition of Pro Tennis League (PTL) to be played at the DLTA Complex here from December 20 to 24.

The field will also have other professional players like Niki Poonacha, Dalwinder Singh, VM Ranjeet, Sidharth Rawat and Kunal Anand.

The introduction of women players will be an added feature in the second edition, and there will also be two Russian players, Daria Mishina and Anna Morgina, along with Indian champions like Riya Bhatia, Sowjanya Bavisetti, Mahak Jain and Prerna Bhambri.

The six teams will be divided into two groups, and play the league stage. The top two teams in each group will make the semifinals.

Matches will be best of 11-game format, with no-advantage scoring. Each tie will feature six matches, junior singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles, men’s doubles, men’s singles, junior and ex-pro doubles.

Considering the cold wave in the Capital, matches have been scheduled to start at 2.30 p.m. on the opening day, and the finals. On the intervening three other days, matches will start at 11 a.m.

THE TEAMS:ARA Avengers: Niki Poonacha, Sidharth Rawat, Riya Bhatia, Nishant Dabas, Suvrat Mall, Saurabh Singh. MENTOR: Todd Clark. Haryana Sapphires: Vijay Sundar Prashant, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Sowjanya Bavisetti, Uddayvir Singh, Garvit Gupta, Arjun Uppal. MENTOR: Chandra Bhushan. Proveri Supersmashers: Ramkumar Ramanathan, Arjun Kadhe, Daria Mishina (Rus), Ashish Sinha, Karan Srivastav, Ashish Khanna. DMG Delhi Crusaders: Dalwinder Singh, Siddhant Banthia, Mahak Jain, Kabir Hans, Ajay Malik, Tushar Jagota. Grip’n Rip: Vishnu Vardhan, VM Ranjeet, Prerna Bhambri, Karan Singh, Rohan Srivastav, Aditya Khanna. Sankara Aces: Sriram Balaji, Kunal Anand, Anna Morgina (Rus), Bikramjeet Chawla, Vansh Kapoor, Vivek Shokeen.