Let’s play Bamboozle.
Remember that scene from Friends? The one where Joey is rehearsing to land a gig as a presenter of the wackiest game show ever invented? Well, someone has taken the tennis rule book and they have bamboozled it right and good.
Introducing: The International Premier Tennis League.
The zaniest, most bizarre, most random, unorthodox, puzzling sporting format in history.
In a game where Andy Murray, Maria Sharapova and Joe Wilfried Tsonga represent the Manila Mavericks, anything is possible in this three-day event where five different formats of tennis make up one set. For example: Murray flies the flag tomorrow for the Mavericks in the first set against the UAE Royals (this is actually a real sentence). He takes on Marin Cilic before Sharapova takes over for the women’s singles in the second. Then we have doubles, then we have mixed doubles before the past champions come out for the last set where the like of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic make up the legends.
The Singapore Slammers – who boast Serena Williams – and the Indian Aces – with both Sampras and Federer on their roster – make up the four teams who all come head-to-head over the three days this weekend in five mix ‘n’ match sets. They then move away from Manila who host the first bout and travel to the other three parts of the world – home advantage and all that. The home team actually chooses the line-up – so if the Mavericks want their beloved Andy Murray headlining the event, the men’s singles would go last. Here’s this weekend’s schedule courtesy of the IPTL Facebook page:
The madness doesn’t end there though. Far from it.
There is no deuce – if the game gets to 40 apiece, whoever wins the next point (what normal people call advantage), wins the game.
Each set is up to six BUT… if the scores are tied at 5-5, there will be a timed five-minute shootout. The scoring will be done like a traditional last-set tie break in this case but features a basketball-style shot clock so there’ll be no time-wasting between serves (probably why Rafa Nadal hasn’t signed up yet).
The team that wins the most games accumulated over all five sets wins the match so, technically, you could lose the match (in real-life) and still win having won maybe just one set (but you won that 6-0 for instance).
If you win the match, you get four points. If you lose but score more than 20 points, you get two points. If you score more than 10, one point. Less than 10, sorry.
But this is the best one yet. At any stage, a player can declare a ‘Power Point’ which doubles the worth of the very next point.
“Would you like to pick a wicked wango card or spin the wheel of mayhem?”
Tennis was fine the way it was! Still though, we’ll probably tune in just for the novelty of it. Here they are going through a trial run of the event.
