Dubai: The Musafir.com UAE Royals will most likely add another singles player to their line-up for next season.
Sachin Gadoya, Managing Director, musafir.com, said the sponsors of the locally-based franchise were in favour of making at least one addition to the existing line-up for the yet to be announced new season.
Led by world number one Novak Djokovic, the Royals have former world number one Caroline Wozniacki, the Arab world’s highest ranked player Malek Jaziri of Tunisia, doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic, 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, Kristina Mladenovic and reigning US Open champion Marin Cilic on their line-up.
The UAE Royals were in the running to challenge the Indian Aces for the inaugural title when a shock 21-23 loss to bottom-placed Singapore Slammers put them out of the running. With nothing to play for except pride, the home team thrashed champions Aces 29-15 on the final day at the Hamdan Sports Complex.
Established in 2007 with its headquarters in Sharjah, the website is the brainchild of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Abdullah Al Thani, Sachin Gadoya and Albert Dias. It currently operates from 10 offices across India and the UAE with another eight new locations in the pipeline. The Royals team was founded by Ace Ventures, a group of investors led by Gadoya along with his friends Sawan Ravani, Rahul Saharia, Kaushal Majithia, Chirag Vora and Kunal Bansal.
“This league is bound to grow in the future. There will be more teams added. We’ve had a very good response from crowds at all four venues, so things can only get better from here on. I doubt we need to change anything. The idea is to keep this same team as they have been doing so well on and off the court. We are thinking of consolidating and the addition of a player will be the right thing to do,” Gadoya told Gulf News.
“There will be a players draft again and the idea will be to retain the ones we have at the moment. Now that this competition is over we are all going to sit and decide what direction we want to take for the next season,” Gadoya said.
“The team has been doing well and it would not help breaking it up. They gel well among themselves and with the owners. We are all very happy. We’ve got the right fit and if we can consolidate on what we have achieved we can have an even better year in 2015,” he added.
