The Ultimate Table Tennis 2023, featuring some of the biggest names in the sport internationally, will be starting in Pune's Balewadi Sports Complex on Thursday and will go on till July 30. It makes a return after three-year hiatus. The previous edition of the tournament was played in 2019, following which it was cancelled 3 times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The competition was founded in 2017, as per Olympics.com.
The franchise-based league is under the auspices of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) and has been a game-changer for Indian table tennis since its inception in 2017. It will be Ultimate Table Tennis season four. The UTT Season 4 will be a single-legged round-robin league format tournament. The final is set to be played on July 30.
League was last played out in Delhi in 2019
The league was last played out in Delhi in 2019 where Chennai Lions, spearheaded by Indian table tennis legend Sharath Kamal won the third edition by beating Sathiyan's Dabang Delhi TTC in the final. The second edition was won by Dabang Delhi TTC led by Manika Batra and Sathiyan, while Falcons TTC won the first edition.
Five of the six franchises participating in the forthcoming edition continue from 2019 -- U Mumba TT, Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, Goa Challengers, Dabang Delhi TTC and RPSG Mavericks Kolkata.
The league has welcomed its newest franchise -- Bengaluru Smashers -- owned and promoted by Punit Balan who heads the Punit Balan Group and is a philanthropist and new-age sports investor with franchises across Ultimate Kho-Kho, Tennis Premier League and the Premier Handball League.
Each team will have six players, four Indian and two foreign players. Chennai Lions are headed by Commonwealth Games champion Sharath Kamal and are defending champions. Puneri Paltans have world number 22 Omar Assar of Egypt.
Bengaluru Smashes feature the number one women's singles player from India, Manika Batra. U Mumba is spearheaded by Aruna Quadri of Nigeria, who is world number 18. Dabang Delhi are the 2018 Champions having top-ranked players like Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and national champion Sreeja Akula on their side. Asian Games and CWG medalist Anthony Amalraj, is also there in the team.
Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 teams and squads
Bengaluru Smashers: Manika Batra, Sanil Shetty, Poymantee Baisya, Ankur Bhattacharjee, Kirill Gerassimenko (Kazakhstan) and Natalia Bajor (Poland) -Chennai Lions: Sharath Kamal, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Payas Jain, Prapti Sen, Yangzi Liu (Australia) and Benedikt Duda (Germany) -Dabang Delhi TTC: Sathiyan G, Sreeja Akula, Ayhika Mukherjee, Anirban Ghosh, Jon Persson (Sweden) and Barbora Balazova (Slovakia) -Goa Challengers: Harmeet Desai, T Reeth Rishya, Kwittwika Sinha Roy, Anthony Amalraj, Suthasini Sawettabut (Thailand) and Alvaro Robles (Spain) -Puneri Paltan Table Tennis: Manush Shah, Archana Kamath, Snehit SFR, Anusha Kutumbale, Omar Assar (Egypt) and Hana Matelova (Czech Republic) -U Mumba TT: Manav Thakkar, Diya Chitale, Mouma Das, Sudhanshu Grover, Lily Zhang (USA) and Aruna Quadri (Nigeria).
