New Delhi: Colombia's Santiago Giraldo will replace injured Andreas Seppi in the Mumbai Tennis Masters team for the 2015 Champions Tennis League, the organisers announced on Friday.
Seppi had to withdraw from the League as he will undergo a surgery due to a hip injury.
Giraldo, world number 70, had last year beaten Lleyton Hewitt, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Andy Murray en route to Madrid Masters quarterfinals. He had also reached the final of the Barcelona Open, an ATP 500 event, last year.
"I am very happy to be coming to India this year to play in the Champions Tennis League Season Two. I'm also ready and excited to play for Mumbai Tennis Masters with some amazing players like Krajicek and Pennetta. I hope to have a great time there and here's to Champions Tennis League 2015 - Bigger, Better, Stronger," Girlado said.
Commenting on the development, CTL founder Vijay Amritraj said, "We are happy to welcome Santiago Giraldo to the Champions Tennis League Season Two. He is a terrific all round player with a powerful game, and the short format in CTL will certainly help him and the Mumbai Tennis Masters to perform well in CTL 2015. I'm sure he will also have a wonderful stay in India."
The second edition of the CTL will commence from November 23 and will see 13 matches played over a two-week period.
CTL will feature six city based teams across India. The teams will be structured into two zones, each having three teams, where all teams play each other in a home and away format.
The team winning the highest number of games in their respective zone will play each other in the grand finale on December 6 to win prize money of Rs. 1 crore. The runner-up will get Rs. 50 lakhs.
