With the Indian Premier League just concluded, and the window open, the other major leagues hop on to make the most of it, and paddlers are the pick of the lot, as the Ultimate Table Tennis is set to begin at Balewadi Sports Complex from July 13.
With the mega cricket events beginning in September-October, the ODI World Cup this season, Ultimate Table Tennis league auctions are making their comeback after three years with the auction which was held here on Friday.
And top of the agenda of the list of players was Commonwealth Games medallist Sreeja Akula, who was picked by Dabang Delhi, while U Mumba TT snapped world number 12 Nigeria's Quadri Aruna in the player draft for the season 4 of the Ultimate Table Tennis league here on Friday.
Veteran Anthony Amalraj and Harmeet Desai, who were both part of the Indian men's team that won a bronze at the 2018 Asian Games, and Alvaro Robles from Spain went to Goa Challengers.
Four players – Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (Dabang Delhi TTC), Manika Batra (Bengaluru Smashers) and Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT) -- had been retained by their respective teams ahead of the player draft.
Each team could pick four Indian players – two males and as many females – as well as a couple of foreign players, including one male and a female during the draft held here at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) premises.
Omar Assar from Egypt was the first player to be selected in the draft and following him was Thailand's Suthasini Sawettabut. While Assar was picked by Puneri Paltan, Suthasini went to the Goa Challengers.
Australia's Yangzi Liu joined Indian star Sharath at the Chennai Lions in the second round.
USA's Lily Zhang was picked by U Mumba, Kazakhstan's Kirill Gerassimenko went to Bengaluru Smashers, India's Manush Shah, Desai and Akula, who won the Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold last year, went to Puneri Paltan, Goa Challengers and Dabang Delhi respectively.
The squads
Bengaluru Smashers: Manika Batra, Kirill Gerassimenko (Kazakhstan), Sanil Shetty, Natalia Bajor (Poland), Poymantee Baisya, Ankur Bhattacharjee
Chennai Lions: Sharath Kamal, Yangzi Liu (Australia), Benedikt Duda (Germany), Sutirtha Mukherjee, Payas Jain, Prapti Sen.
Dabang Delhi TTC: Sathiyan G, Sreeja Akula, Barbora Balazova (Slovakia), Ayhika Mukherjee, Anirban Ghosh, Jon Persson (Sweden).
Goa Challengers: Suthasini Sawettabut (Thailand), Harmeet Desai, Alvaro Robles (Spain), Reeth Tennison, Kwittwika Sinha Roy, Anthony Amalraj.
Puneri Paltan TTC: Omar Assar (Egypt), Manush Shah, Archana Kamath, Snehit SFR, Anusha Kutumbale, Hana Matelova (Czech Republic).
U Mumba TT: Manav Thakkar, Lily Zhang (US), Quadri Aruna (Nigeria), Diya Chitale, Mouma Das, Sudhanshu Grover.
