India’s franchise-based table tennis league, Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), returns for its fourth season on Thursday after a four-year hiatus. In 2019, Chennai Lions, under the leadership of Achanta Sharath Kamal, won the UTT in its third season. They will face the hosts Puneri Paltan in the season opener.
Everything you need to know about UTT Season 4 can be found here.
When?
The season will run from July 13 to 30. Every match will begin at 7:30 p.m. IST.
Where?
The Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune will serve as the central location for all matches.
Which teams are there?
This season, there are six teams: the Bengaluru Smashers, Chennai Lions, Goa Challengers, Dabang Delhi TTC, Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, and U Mumba TT.
While a Player Draft was held in June for the remaining squads, Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), G Sathiyan (Dabang Delhi TTC), Manika Batra (Bengaluru Smashers), and Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT) were retained by their franchises. Full rundown of crews beneath)
Who to keep an eye out for?
All eyes will be on the Indian team going into the Asian Games in September, given their recent performance at WTT Contenders.
Sharath, Sathiyan, Manika, and Manav, all retained stars, have been the league’s face, and they intend to continue. Sharath, 41, has already stated that he plans to use UTT as both practice for the Asian Games and the beginning of his preparation for the Paris Olympics, which will take place exactly one year from now.
Last month, Sutirtha Mukherjee from Chennai Lions and Ayhika Mukherjee from Dabang Delhi won the doubles title at the WTT Contender in Tunis. They were playing really well at that time. Goa Challengers will have Harmeet Desai playing for them. Harmeet surprised two Asian players with higher rankings to make it to the semi-finals and won the bronze medal at the WTT Contender in Lagos last month.
The Delhi Dabang will feature national champion Sreeja Akula, who was also one of the best athletes at the Commonwealth Games last year.
Among the large global players in the field are Nigerian veteran Quadri Aruna (WR 16), USA’s Lily Zhang (WR 24) – who was just 12 when she turned into the most youthful ever player to make the USA ladies’ public group and Omar Assar (WR 22) – who turned out to be just the second African player to arrive at the quarterfinals of the World Table Tennis Title recently.
The youthful and promising Indians to look out for are Payas Jain (Chennai Lions) – the 19-year-old is the main Indian to secure three decorations in the Asian Junior and Recruit Table Tennis Title and furthermore won gold at the Asian Junior Title and Diya Chitale (U Mumba) – the 20-year-old has proactively played for India at the CWG and has two awards in the WTT Youth Competitor competitions also.
What is the format of the competition?
There will be five matches in each tie: Mixed Doubles, Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, and Men’s Singles, in that order. Importantly, each singles match must feature four distinct players, and two of those four must be available for the mixed doubles match.
Each match will have 3 games, won by the first to score 11 focuses. If scores are level at 10-all, the eleventh point will be a Brilliant Highlight choose the champ. There will be 15 games in each tie, and the winner will be determined by the total number of games won.
The six franchisees will compete in a total of 18 matches. All franchises will compete against each other once during the League Stage. From July 13 to July 27, there will be one match a day, and the top four teams will advance to the semifinals on July 28 and 29. On July 30, the final will be played.
How do I view?
The tournament will be streamed on Jio Cinema and broadcast live on Sports 18.
