MUMBAI: Forty eight players have been shortlisted in the draft for selection for the franchises of the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) containing an equal mix of Indian and foreign players. Each franchise had to pick four Indian and four foreign players from the draft. UTT, to be held in different Indian cities from 13 July, will be telecast live on Star Sports select2 SD HD and Hotstar.
The UTT will be hosted in Chennai (13 to 20 July) and New Delhi (21 to 26 July, with the final leg being held in Mumbai (27 to 30 July). It will have 18 matches divided into 15 leagues, two semis and one final with the price money of US$ 450,000.
The six franchises are: BaySide Spinners TTC (owned by owned by Sameer Koticha of ASK Group), Challengers (owned by Vivek Bhargava CEO DAN Performance Group), Dabang Smashers TTC (owned by Radha Kapoor Khanna of Dolt Sports), Maharashtra United (owned by Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of Rajesh Wadhawan Group), Olimax Stag Yoddhas (owned by Kapil Garg and Vivek Kohli) and RP-SG Mavericks (owned by Sanjiv Goenka of RP-SG Group).
Unlike other major sporting leagues being run in the country like IPL and ISL, UTT will have club-based franchises rather than city-based franchises.
Starting with Round 1, BaySide Spinners TTC received the rights for the first pick and went all out to sign foreign player Wu Yang (Women, World No. 12) from China. Maharashtra United then took Wong Chun Ting (Men, World No.7) from Hong Kong. Challengers pulled a thriller and picked World no. 7 in the women’s category Han Ying from Germany before Dabang Smashers TTC had the next bid and picked Marcos Freitas (Men, 16) from Portugal. Dilmax Stag Yoddhas went for Doo Hoi Kem (Women, 13) from Hong Kong followed by RP-SG Maverics who picked Stefan Fegerl (Men, 21) form Austria.
Teams with their eight players including domestic and International players (with their rankings) are:
BaySide Spinners
Domestic: Sanil Shetty, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Arjun Ghosh and Priyadarshini Das.
International: Wu Yang (China, World no. 7), Ho Ching Lee (Hong Kong, 33), Par Gerell (Sweden, 44), Liam Pitchford (England, 51)
Challengers
Domestic: Soumyajit Ghosh, Mouma Das, Manav Thakkar, Moumita Datta.
International: Li Ping (Qatar, 48), Han Ying (Germany, 9), Petrissa Solja (Germany, 20), Andrej Gacina (Croatia, 38).
Dabang Smashers TTC
Domestic: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, A Amalraj, Madhurika Patkar, Mousumi Paul
International: Marcos Freitas (Portugal, 16), Melek Hu (Turkey, 15), Kou Lei (Ukraine, 24), Bilenko Tetyana (Ukraine, 56).
Maharashtra United
Domestic: Harmeet Desai, Krittwika Sinha Roy, Pooja Sahasrabudhe Koparkar, Ronit Bhanja.
International: Chun Ting Wong (Hong Kong, 7), Liu Jia (Austria, 17), Fu Yu (Portugal, 35), Joao Moteira (Portugal, 49).
Oilmax Stag Yoddhas
Domestic: Manika Batra, Jubin Kumar, Abhishek Yadav, Selena D Selvakumar.
International: Hoi Kem Doo (Hong Kong, 13), Panagiotis Gionis (Greece, 36), Aruna Quadri (Nigeria, 37), Polina Mikhailova (Russia, 54).
RS-PG Mavericks
Domestic: Sharath Kamal Achanta, Archana Girish Kamath, Birdie Boro, Amruthapushpak Shekhar.
International: Fegerl Stefan (Austria, 21), Tiago Apolonia (Portugal, 19), Polcanova Sofia (Austria, 50) Sabina Winter (Germany, 39).
