Big names signed but where did $29m come from?
Mahesh Bhupathi, the impresario behind the launch of the International Premier Tennis League, has put his plane on the runway by allocating 28 leading players - including Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams - into four squads for his city-based tournament.
How high will the plane fly? The signs are positive, yet there are also significant gaps in the information coming out of the player auction in Dubai - notably the identity of the four team owners who have reportedly bid a total of US$24 million ($29 million).
The players now know which city they will be representing. Murray, for example, is down for Bangkok, alongside Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Victoria Azarenka. Nadal is on the team-sheet for Mumbai, Djokovic for Dubai and Williams for Singapore. But they remain unclear as to who will be paying their wages.
Where cricket's Indian Premier League made a big deal out of its inaugural auction in 2008, inviting TV cameras into a hotel ballroom in Mumbai and turning the bidding process into a sport of its own, the tennis equivalent was more clandestine.