The Aces always had the winning belief

Dubai: The Indian Aces always believed they could take home the inaugural International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) crown.

At the end of 16 days of competition that saw the four teams make as many stops, the Indian Aces finished with 39 points following their eight wins and four losses, while the UAE Royals came in second with seven wins and five losses to total 37 points.

The Manila Mavericks were placed third with six wins and as many losses for their 35 points, while the Singapore Slammers compiled a record of only three wins and seven losses for their 24 points.

“For me, this has definitely been such a huge experience. It has been so much of fun to be on a team like this as it brings in a different feeling and perspective to competition. We always knew we had a team to deliver the title,” former world number one Ana Ivanovic told media at the post-match conference late on Saturday.

Her Aces teammate Gael Monfils enjoyed the sense of belonging and camaraderie each one felt being in one team. “For sure, I am taking a lot of positive energy from here. We all had such a great experience and we can only think about carrying forward these positives into the new season. This has been a great concept from a former top tennis player [Mahesh Bhupathi] and I am glad our sport is moving forward with this competition,” the Frenchman said.

Indian star Sania Mirza, who next year will team up with Chinese Taipei’s Su-Wei Hsieh in the women’s doubles, insisted that the entire Aces team had the self-belief to see the inaugural year through. “Honestly, we simply believed from the beginning that we could win. But I think things sort of started rolling for us after we won the first three matches. That helped our confidence a lot and we started believing even more,” she said.

“Definitely we are probably one of the best teams, and then we had a couple of rough matches. But we always had a lot of confidence in each other that we could see this through. We were all playing well and gelling really well on and off the court and throughout we were just trying to win all the time,” Mirza added.