Founding of franchise On 21 January 2014, IPTL announced that one of the charter franchises for the league inaugural
2014 season would be based in
Mumbai. On 19 June 2014, an IPTL
press release revealed to the
general public that the owner of the Indian franchise was
Micromax Informatics Ltd. which preferred to have the team play its home matches in
New Delhi and not in Mumbai. A group called PVP Ventures led by
entrepreneur Prasad V Potluri and
cricket legend
Sachin Tendulkar had been the original franchise owners with a plan to play home matches in Mumbai. While league managing director
Mahesh Bhupathi said PVP Ventures had been replaced by Micromax, because PVP missed a payment deadline, PVP said it had withdrawn from the league due to lack of clarity over how IPTL's business model was progressing and disagreements over player contracts. PVP did not want the team to be solely responsible for payment of player salaries and favored the league being obligated as well.
Inaugural draft The Mumbai franchise (as the Aces were still known at the time) participated in the IPTL inaugural draft on 2 March 2014, in
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates.
Notes Team name By May 2014, the team had been named the Indian Aces.
Home venue On 25 July 2014, the Aces announced that their home matches would be played at
Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in
New Delhi,
Delhi.
Inaugural season On 28 November 2014, the Aces defeated the
Singapore Slammers, 26–16, in the first match in IPTL history.
Rohan Bopanna served the first point of the league's inaugural match. They went on to be the champion of the
2014 International Premier Tennis League ==Television coverage==