World No. 10 Romania’s Bernadette Szocs, rising India paddler Sreeja Akula, Nigeria’s ace player Quadri Aruna, and Germany’s Nina Mittelham are among the top players who will spearhead the strong line-up for the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) 2024 Players Draft in Mumbai on July 10.
World No. 24 Sreeja, who recently created history by becoming the country’s first paddler to win a WTT Contender singles title, will be the key attraction among Indians.
The 29-year-old Bernadette will be making her third appearance. Quadri, ranked 16th in the world, will be returning for his fourth appearance while World No. 17 Mittelham will be making her UTT debut this year as a total of 47 players, including eight foreign men and women, will be part of the Player Draft and 43 players will get drafted to teams.
Star Indian paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), G Sathiyan (Dabang Delhi TTC), Harmeet Desai (Goa Challengers), Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT) and Manika Batra (PBG Bengaluru Smashers) have already been retained by their respective franchises for the upcoming season.
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Besides Sreeja, the roster of home-grown talent in the Player Draft includes Asian Games doubles bronze medallists Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee along with the upcoming talents like Yashaswini Ghorpade, Diya Chitale, Poymantee Baisya and Taneesha Kotecha among women, and Snehit SFR, Jeet Chandra, Manush Shah and Yashansh Malik among men.
Among the women players, Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut (WR56), who played an important role in helping Goa Challengers clinch the title last year, Sakura Mori (WR27), Lily Zhang (WR30) and Orawan Paranang (WR 36) will be part of the draft.
Other prominent foreign stars set to be part of the draft include 2024 World Team Table Tennis Championships silver medallists Jules Rolland and Lilian Bardet of France, four-time Olympian and 2015 European Championships doubles gold medallist Joao Monteiro of Portugal, 2019 World Championships doubles silver medallist Alvaro Robles of Spain and South Korea’s World No. 70 Cho Seungmin.
It will be an eight-team league for the first time providing a platform for young Indian paddlers to exhibit their talent alongside the world’s elite players. UTT 2024 is slated to be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai from August 22 to September 7.
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