After a lot of hemming and hawing about whether it would be held this year, the official announcement about the International Premier Tennis League’s 2016 schedule was finally made by Mahesh Bhupathi on Thursday. The tournament founder, in a specially convened press conference in Hyderabad, spoke about the changes to the event this year, its plan for the next season and about the players, who would be playing in India.

The 2016 edition of the IPTL will be held from 2 to 11 December in three cities, with four participating teams, the Indian Aces, the Japan Warriors, the UAE Royals and the Singapore Slammers. The hosting cities will be Tokyo, from 2 to 4 December, Singapore, 6 to 8 December and Hyderabad that will host the final leg, from 9 to 11 December. The event final will be held on 11 December.

About the reason for moving away from the five-team format, Bhupathi specified, “We will host it in three nations this year – Singapore, Japan and India. All going well we will go back to the five-city format in 2017.”

As regards to the players, unlike previously speculated, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will not be a part of any of the four teams. The Indian team will feature Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna, Eugenie Bouchard, Mark Philippoussis, Thomas Enqvist, Feliciano Lopez and Ivan Dodig. World No. 2 Serena Williams will be seen representing the defending champions, the OUE Singapore Slammers.

It had also been speculated that demonetisation would hamper plans of having the tournament this year. While Bhupathi firmly denied that cancelling the tournament was ever on the cards, he did however admit that plans to host the event in two cities – Hyderabad and Bengaluru had to be scrapped.

“It was always a plan to take the league to other Indian cities so that the tennis fan can enjoy watching the best stars in action. The first two years we went with Delhi. This year the plan was to stage it in Hyderabad and Bangalore. However, we aren’t sure if in the current climate doing two cities was pragmatic. Hence, we have decided to stick to Hyderabad,” he commented, also indicating the change from New Delhi as the previous venue.