Aruna Quadri, the World No. 16 and multiple African champion, will team up with veteran Indian female paddler Mouma Das and her promising counterpart Diya Chitale at U Mumba TT for the fourth edition of Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), the franchise-based table tennis league that will return after a three-year hiatus. Stalwart A. Sharath Kamal will have seasoned German Benedikt Duda as his teammate at Chennai Lions.
The team line-ups for the six-team event were finalised during the Player Draft, conducted here on Friday. Sharath, star paddler Manika Batra, who will be new-franchise Bengaluru Smashers’ key player, bespectacled Manav Thakkar and Chitale attended the draft in the presence of management and Indian coaches of all the franchises as well as UTT co-promoter Vita Dani and Table Tennis Federation of India’s secretary general Kamlesh Mehta.
With Sharath, G. Sathiyan (Dabang Delhi TTC), Thakkar (U Mumba) and Manika having been retained ahead of the draft, Quadri was expected to be latched on to either by Goa Challengers or Puneri Paltan TT.
However, with Paltan opting for Egypt’s Omar Assar and Challengers picking Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut in the first round, Quadri was eventually picked by U Mumba in the third round.
The Smashers, with owner Punit Balan in attendance, signed Kazakhstan’s Kirill Gerassimenko, former national champion Sanil Shetty, Poland’s female star Natalia Bajor besides promising youngsters Ankur Bhattacharjee and Poymantee Baisya.
Sanil’s wife, T. Reeth Rishya, will represent Goa Challengers who also managed to snap up the husband-wife duo of Harmeet Desai and Krittwika Sinha Roy onto its roster.
UTT’s fourth edition will be played from July 13 to 30 in Pune. While six overseas male and as many female players were offered for the draft, with each franchise requiring to sign an overseas paddler, with two males and two females required on every team’s roster, UTT organisers had offered 14 men and women each in the Indian category.
While Mouma and veteran Anthony Amalraj found takers, the two males who did not find a taker were Jeet Chandra and Ronit Bhanja. Takeme Sarkar and Moumita Dutta were the two female paddlers who remained unsold.
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