Table Tennis action will return in India after nearly a four-year hiatus. Table tennis is one of the most popular indoor sports in India and is followed ardently by a large section of the Indian population. With the successful introduction of the franchise-based league system of the Indian Premier League for sports like Football, Kabaddi, Badminton etc., the Ultimate Table Tennis is expected to be the next big thing. Table tennis has a lot of takers in society and has immense potential for success in the Indian market. The 2023 edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis will be the fourth season for the league, which continues to grow further.
UTT 2023 will be hosted at the Balewadi Stadium, Pune from July 13 to July 30, with defending championships Chennai Lions locking horns with the Puneri Paltan TT.
Background
The Ultimate Table Tennis is organised and run by 11Sports owned by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani, who is also the co-owner of ISL franchise Chennaiyin FC. The league also received support from some big names from the corporate world, which include Punit Balan who owns the Bengaluru Smashers franchisee, Ronnie Screwvala's U Mumba TT and Radha Kapoor’s DoIT Sports Management, which runs Dabang Smashers. The league is contributing significantly at the grassroots level.
Schedule
Ultimate Table Tennis will be held from July 13 to July 30, with six teams participating. You can find the entire schedule here.
Matches
A tie will constitute of five matches, namely Men's Singles, Women's Singles, Mixed Doubles, Men's Singles and Women's Singles in that exact order. The team that wins the majority of the matches takes home the win in the tie.
Teams
Bengaluru Smashers will be making their debut in the tournament. The teams in the UTT 2023 are: Chennai Lions, Dabang Delhi TTC, Puneri Paltan TT, Bengaluru Smashers, U Mumba TT and Goa Challengers.
Players
Apart from the retained players in Sathiyan G (Dabang Delhi TTC), Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), Manika Batra (Bengaluru Smashers) and Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT), some other Indian talents such as Sreeja Akula and Harmeet Desai will be in action. Among foreign players, the likes of Quadri Aruna (U Mumba TT), Lily Zhang (U Mumba TT), Alvaro Robles (Goa Challengers) and Omar Assar (Puneri Paltan TT)
