Top Players Like Sreeja Akula and Bernadette Szocs to Shine in Ultimate Table Tennis 2024
New Delhi, India – The Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) 2024 Players Draft is set to take place in Mumbai on July 10. This exciting event will feature top players from around the world, including World No. 10 Bernadette Szocs from Romania, India’s rising star Sreeja Akula, Nigeria’s ace player Quadri Aruna, and Germany’s Nina Mittelham.
Bernadette Szocs, 29, will be making her third appearance in the league. Quadri Aruna, ranked 16th in the world, will be returning for his fourth appearance, while World No. 17 Nina Mittelham will be making her UTT debut. A total of 47 players, including eight foreign men and women, will be part of the Player Draft, and 43 players will be drafted to teams.
Sreeja Akula, ranked World No. 24, recently made history by becoming the first Indian paddler to win a WTT Contender singles title. She will be a key attraction among Indian players.
The UTT league, promoted by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani under the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), has been a game-changer for Indian table tennis since its inception in 2017. This year, the league will feature eight teams for the first time, providing a platform for young Indian paddlers to showcase their talent alongside the world’s elite players. The UTT 2024 season will be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai from August 22 to September 7.
Star Indian paddlers like 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.
According to the Player Draft rules, only Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, who did not retain a player, and two new teams, Jaipur Patriots and Ahmedabad SG Pipers, will be part of the opening round of the draft. All eight teams will participate from the second round, with each franchise required to form a six-member squad consisting of one foreign male and female player and two Indian male and female players.
Besides Sreeja Akula, the roster of home-grown talent in the Player Draft includes Asian Games doubles bronze medallists Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee, along with 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.
UTT promoters Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani expressed their excitement about the growth of Indian table tennis, stating, “Indian table tennis has witnessed a tremendous rise in the last few years, and having five female players in the Top 100 is a reflection of that growth. The fresh new set of Indian faces in the Player Draft just shows how much table tennis has progressed in India, and we are extremely happy that the rise of UTT as a world-class league has contributed significantly to the growth of these young players. We are looking forward to these players leaving a mark on the upcoming season.”
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. Among the women players, Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut (WR56), who played a key role in helping Goa Challengers clinch the title last year, Sakura Mori (WR27), Lily Zhang (WR30), and Orawan Paranang (WR36) will be part of the draft.
The format has undergone a slight alteration with the inclusion of eight teams, now divided into two groups of four teams each. Each franchise will compete in five ties during the league stage, facing all other teams within their respective group once, alongside two randomly selected teams from the opposing group, determined through a draw.
