UKTV to broadcast live tennis on Dave

UKTV have secured the exclusive rights to the fast-paced tennis tournament, the 2017 Tie Break Tens Series.

UKTV’s channel Dave is a free to air service aimed at men.

“The Tie Break Tens format is an excellent way to get shorter and faster matches giving a thrilling evening of tennis entertainment. It’s looking to do for tennis what Twenty20 did for cricket with significant levels of prize money attracting the very best players.” – Steve North, general manager for Dave

Tie Break Tens is a short format of tennis in which only tie-breaks are played. Each match is a first-to-ten point tie break. Every tournament awards a winner-take-all cheque after a single, four-hour session of super-charged high-pressure tennis. Produced by Sunset+Vine for Dave, live coverage of the 2017 Tie Break Tens series starts with Madrid next month where, for the first time, both men’s and women’s events will take place, side-by-side, with a knockout format used.

The Mutua Charity Tie Break Tens features British No. 1 and current World No. 7 Jo Konta in the women’s event.. She will be up against the French Open champion Garbine Muguruza, former World No.1 Maria Sharapova, 2012 Wimbledon runner-up and World No 8 Agnieszka Radwanska, World No. 5 Simona Halep, Olympic gold-medallist Monica Puig and big-hitting American Madison Keys.

Ore Oduba, best known for his hosting on BBC Sport, will present the UKTV coverage.

For the men’s title, the US Open champion and World No 3 Stan Wawrinka, World No.5 Kei Nishikori, Bulgarian star Grigor Dimitrov and Spanish trio David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez will battle it out along with French flier Lucas Pouille. Both the men’s and women’s tournaments still have one more player each to announce. The 16 players will compete in 14 tie-break matches, with two tournaments, running in parallel, over the evening.

Last year in Vienna, Andy Murray reached the Tie Break Tens final, losing out to home-favourite Dominic Thiem, who took away a winner-take-all prize of $250,000. It was the second time that Murray had been denied at the final hurdle in Tie Break Tens. At the inaugural event in London, Murray lost out to young British player Kyle Edmund, who walked away with more money in one night than he had earned in the previous 12 months. In the following year, Edmund was one of the highest climbing players on the ATP World Tour, from outside the top 100 to 48.

Broadcaster Ore Oduba will host UKTV’s coverage from 6.30pm on May 4th, live from Madrid, on the DAVE channel.

Dave has previously aired cricket coverage on the channel.