UTT Season 4: World No. 12 Quadri Aruna leads exciting players line-up; Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan and Manika key attractions among Indians

UTT Season 4: World No. 12 Quadri Aruna leads exciting players line-up; Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan and Manika key attractions among Indians

Ace paddler Quadri Aruna will spearhead a strong players line-up for Season 4 of Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) which will also feature Indian stars like Achanta Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra.

One of Africa’s greatest table tennis players, Aruna, who is currently ranked 12th in the world and played the first two seasons of UTT makes his return to India for a third time. Besides Aruna, World No. 32 Benedikt Duda of Germany, World No. 34 Omar Assar of Egypt, Alvaro Robles of Spain, who won a Doubles Silver at the 2019 World Championships will also be part of Season 4, scheduled to be held at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune from July 13-30.

USA’s Lily Zhang (WR24), Australia’s Yangzi Liu (WR32), Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut (WR33) and Barbora Balazova of Slovakia (WR44) will be the international women’s players in the draft pool.

Veteran paddler Sharath Kamal who holds the record of 10 nationals titles, Sathiyan who is India’s top ranked men’s player at the moment (WR51) and World No. 39 Batra will headline the Indian line-up along with some of the promising young talents such as reigning national champion SSreeja Akula, who has just won back-to-back Nationals Titles, U-19 boys national title holder Payas Jain, Diya Chitale, S Fidel R Snehit and Ankur Bhattacharjee.

The franchise-based league is promoted by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani under the auspices of the Table Tennis Federation of India.

The upcoming season will feature six teams: Bengaluru Smashers, Chennai Lions, Dabang Delhi TTC, Goa Challengers, Puneri Paltan Table Tennis and U Mumba TT.

After recently picking their coaches at the UTT Season 4 Coach Draft, each franchise will now look to build a strong six-member squad at the UTT Season 4 Player Draft to be held in Mumbai next month. From a pool of 40 available players, each team can choose two foreigners – one male and one female and four Indians – two male and two female. Every team has the right to retain one player from the previous season.

PLAYERS LIST:

Foreign Players

Men

Women

Quadri Aruna (NGR, WR12)

Lily Zhang (USA, WR24)

Kirill Gerassimenko (KAZ, WR54)

Suthasini Sawettabut (THA, WR33)

Benedikt Duda (GER, WR32)

Natalia Bajor (POL, WR54)

Jon Persson (SWE, WR50)

Barbora Balazova (SVK, WR44)

Alvaro Robles (ESP, WR43)

Hana Matelova (CZE, WR53)

Omar Assar (EGY, WR34)

Yangzi Liu (AUS, WR32)

Indian Players

Men

Women

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran

Sreeja Akula

Manush Shah

Sutirtha Mukherjee

Harmeet Desai

Diya Chitale

Manav Thakkar

Reeth Rishya

Achanta Sharath Kamal

Ayhika Mukherjee

Sanil Shetty

Manika Batra

Snehit SFR

Moumita Dutta

Anirban Ghosh

Anusha Kutumbale

Sudhanshu Grover

Archana Kamath

Jeet Chandra

Poymantee Baisya

Ronit Bhanja

Mouma Das

Anthony Amalraj

Takeme Sarkar

Payas Jain

Prapti Sen

Ankur Bhattacharjee

Krittwika Sinha Roy