India is all set to host it’s first ever Professional Table Tennis League, Ultimate Table Tennis in mid July. The tournament will be held in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi starting 13th July, as announced on Monday.
World No. 7 and last year’s bronze medallist in the men’s World Cup, Wong Chun Ting of Hong Kong and womens World No.9 Han Ying of Germany are among the 24 men and women foreign players who will be participating in the UTT.
The tournament is said to have comprising 6 franchise and will run on the following schedule
Chennai 13-20 July
New Delhi 21-26 July
Mumbai 27-30 July
India’s Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra will lead 12 men and 12 women from the country. The tournament will consist of six teams and each team will be having 8 players, containing equal overseas and Indian players.
“These are exciting times for us at the UTT as we inch closer to the launch of the first ever professional TT league in India. We have received an overwhelming response from foreign players and have a strong pool of Indian talent also,” said Vita Dani, Chairperson, 11Even Sports, the promoter of the tournament.
Following are the names of players participating in UTT,
Overseas players:
Men: 1. Wong Chun Ting (Hong Kong, World No. 7), 2. Marcos Freitas (Portugal, World No. 16), 3. Liam Pitchford (England, World No. 51), 4. Stefan Fegerl (Austria, World No. 21), 5. Andrej Gacina (Croatia, World No.38), 6. Panagiotis Gionis (Greece, World No.36), 7. Aruna Quadri (Nigeria, World No. 37), 8. Kou Lei (Ukraine, World No.24) , 9. Par Gerell (Sweden, World No.44), 10. Li Ping (Qatar, World No. 48), 11. Joao Monteiro (Portugal, World No. 49), 12. Tiago Apolonia (Portugal, World No. 19)
Women: 1. Han Ying (Germany, World No.9), 2. Li Qian (Poland, World No. 37) , 3. Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong, World No.13), 4. Tetyana Bilenko (Ukraine, World No.56), 5. Lee Ho Ching (Hong Kong, World No. 33) , 6. Petrissa Solja (Germany, World No.20), 7. Liu Jia (Austria, World No. 17) , 8. Yu Fu (Portugal, World No.35), 9. Wu Yang (China, World No.12), 10. Sabine Winter (Germany, World No.39), 11. Polina Mikhailova (Russia, World No.54), 12. Hu Melek (Turkey, World No.15)
Indian players:
Men: 1. Sharath Kamal Achanta, 2. Abhishek Yadav , 3. Manav Thakkar, 4. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, 5. Birdie Boroy, 6. Sanil Shetty, 7. Jubin Kumar, 8. Harmeet Desai , 9. Ronit Bhanja, 10. Amalraj Anthon , 11. Arjun Ghosh, 12. Soumyajit Ghosh
Women: 1. Manika Batra, 2. Mouma Das, 3. Selena Deepti Selvakumar, 4. Pooja Sahasrabudhe, 5. Amurtha Pushpak, 6. Mousumi Paul, 7. Moumita Dutta, 8. Archana Kamath, 9. Krittwika Sinha Roy, 10. Suthirtha Mukherjee, 11. Priyadarshini Das, 12. Madhurika Patkar.