The third edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis will begin on Thursday when defending champions Dabang Delhi lock horns with Puneri Paltan in the season-opener in New Delhi.
India’s top paddlers including Sathiyan G, Manika Batra, Sharath Kamal and a number of foreign stars will battle it out over the next three weeks in the league.
Among the six teams in fray, three of them (Puneri Paltan, Chennai Lions and U Mumba) will be making their debuts.
In the opening match, Sathiyan-led Delhi will begin the defence of their title when they take on Puneri Paltan that boast of the recently-concluded Commonwealth Championships gold medallists Harmeet Desai and Ahyika Mukherjee.
Sporting a rejigged shorter format this season, each team will play five ties – compared to seven last year – with a match decided over three games. If the scores are tied at 10-all, a golden point shall decide the winner.
Dates of the tournament: 25th July to 11th August
Semi Finals: August 9 and 10
Final: 11th August (Thyagraj Stadium, New Delhi)
Prize Money: Total Rs 2 crore (winners: Rs 75 lakh, runners-up: Rs 50 lakh, loser of each semi-final: Rs 25 lakh, other individual award winner (total purse): Rs 25 lakh)
Full schedule of the tournament here:
Squads:
Dabang Delhi T.T.C.: Sathiyan G. (India), Bernadette Szocs (Romania), Jon Persson (Sweden), Parth Virmani (India), Naina (India), Krittwika Sinha Roy (India)
Puneri Paltan Table Tennis: Chuang Chih-Yuan (Chinese Taipei), Harmeet Desai (India), Ayhika Mukherjee (India), Selena Selvakumar (India), Ronit Bhanja (India), Sabine Winter (Germany)
Chennai Lions: Sharath Kamal (India), Petrissa Solja (Germany), Tiago Apolonia (Portugal), Madhurika Patkar (India), Yashini Sivasankar (India), Anirban Ghosh (India)
RP-SG Mavericks Kolkata: Manika Batra (India), Benedikt Duda (Germany), Matilda Ekholm (Sweden), Manush Shah (India), Prapti Sen (India), Sanil Shetty (India)
U Mumba TT: Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong), Manav Thakkar (India), Sutirtha Mukherjee (India), Kirill Gerassimenko (Kazakhstan), Jeet Chandra (India), Moumita Dutta (India)
Goa Challengers- Cheng I-Ching (Chinese Taipei), Archana Kamath (India), Amalraj Anthony (India), Siddhesh Pande (India), Shruti Amrute (India), Alvaro Robles (Spain).
