TENNIS TUESDAY: Federer Releases 2016 Schedule, Murray Keeps Mauresmo, Kvitova Engaged!

FEDERER'S 2016 SCHEDULE LIMITS CLAY AND BOOSTS GRASS, SKIPS 4 MASTERS
Roger Federer has released his tentative 2016 ATP tour schedule and the 34-year-old has decided to only play one clay court tournament (Roland Garros) and will increase the amount of grass tournaments he plays, adding Stuttgart to his schedule the week before his traditional Wimbledon warm-up in Halle. (This is especially exciting news for me, because I am planning to visit Germany this summer and if I could also see Federer play on grass that would be an incredible experience!) Because of the length of his career and age Federer is deciding to skip a surprising FOUR of the 9 Master's Series tournaments: Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid and Canada (Toronto/Montreal).

COACHING MUSICAL CHAIRS CONTINUE: MURRAY, KEYS, HALEP, FEDERER
The musical chairs among coaches of the major tennis players continues. This week's announcement was that Andy Murray is going back to having Amelie Mauresmo as his main coach, ending his professional relationship with Jonas Bkorkman. A few weeks ago Federer announced Stefan Edberg would not coach him in 2016, instead that role would be taken by Ivan Ljubicic. Previously it was announced that Jesse Levine would be coaching Madison Keys (instead of Lindsay Davenport) and that Darren Cahill had been named Simona Halep's official coach.

PETRA KVITOVA ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT TO RADEK (NOT WHO YOU THINK)
2-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova surprised many tennis players by announcing via Twitter that the 25-year-old was now engaged to be married to 27-year-old Czech hockey player Radek Meidel.

DJOKOVIC AND SERENA WIN 2015 ITF CHAMPION TITLES
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced that Novak Djokovic has won the title for the 5th time and Serena Williams has won the title for the 6th time. They both won 3 major titles in 2015. Serena won the first three, while Djokovic lost in the finals of the French Open. The ITF is the official governing body of international tennis and is the group that sanctions the Grand Slam tournaments and manages international team competitions like Davis Cup, Fed Cup and Hopman Cup. The ITF champion almost always is the person who wins the most singles majors that year.

SURPRISE AT 2015 IPTL WHERE DEFENDING CHAMPS INDIAN ACES LOSE FINAL SINGAPORE SLAMMERS
The Indian Aces were the most dominant team in the off-season exhibition competition called the International Premiere Tennis League (IPTL) for the second year but this time they lost the championship match against the Singapore Slammers. The Aces had stars like Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna while the Slammers had Belinda Bencic and Stan Wawrinka. Major champions like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Marin Cilic all competed this year.