Roger Federer and Serena Williams drop out of International Premier Tennis League

ByTom Bennett

Published 06/12/2016 at 11:08 GMT

Roger Federer and Serena Williams have both pulled out of India's International Premier Tennis League due to financial uncertainty.

The 2016 IPTL is the third edition of the tournament and Federer and Williams both featured in the previous two.

Serena Williams

Image credit: Imago

But India's financial crisis after demonetisation means that many of the game's best players will be absent when the IPTL gets underway on December 9.

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"We have had challenges this year, and we were hoping to get past them," IPTL founder Mahesh Bhupathi said.

"With the current economic climate in India and the uncertainty of spending money, I reached out to both Roger and Serena to explain the situation.

"They have been both been very supportive of the IPTL the first two seasons and we look forward to bring them in future years."

The event in Hyderabad was due to be Federer's first competitive appearance since July. The former world No. 1 will now wait until 2017 before making his comeback.

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