Table Tennis is an intriguing and a thrilling sport. It requires a great deal of concentration reflex and stamina. The game is quite popular among the Asian countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, and Malaysia. In India, the game is growing rapidly in recent years. India has got some talented players coming through the ranks. Given, an opportunity and proper facilities they can shine brightly.
Likes of Manika Batra, Achanta Sarath Kamal, Mouma Das and the entire squad has done really well and punched above their expectation in the 2018 commonwealth games.
To spread the game across the country The Ultimate Table Tennis League has been introduced in 2017. It is a franchise based table tennis league very much like the IPL. The Inaugural edition of the league has received overwhelming support from the spectators. Kamlesh Mehta, director of 11Sports, is the league organizer. Last season was terrific, all the players performed exceedingly well and table tennis fans across the nation have witnessed some closely contested matches. Falcons TTC became the first team to win the inaugural edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis League, they defeated Shaze Challengers (14-9) in the finals.
The Table Tennis Federation of India has decided to reduce the number of matches in each tie from nine matches to seven. Thus, it will make the second edition of the league more compact and competitive. The second edition of the league scheduled to be held on from June 14th to July 1st. It will be played in three cities i.e. Pune, Delhi, and Kolkata. Six teams will battle it out to gain the ultimate supremacy.
Each team shall play 7 matches in a tie with each match comprising 3 games. So, each tie comprises 21 games. The team that wins 11 or more games out of 21 games shall be declared as the winner of that respective tie. That is the basic rule of the competition. All the matches will be telecast live on television. Indian table tennis sensation and commonwealth champion Manika Batra is the highest paid player in the league.
The Ultimate Table Tennis League is the step towards the right direction to popularise the game in the country. It also provides young Indian players to rub shoulders with the best in the world. We can only hope that it will grow bigger and better in coming years. It will also bring out future champions as per Indian table tennis is concerned.
Know your teams :
Dabang Smashers T.T.C.:
Players: Sakura Mori, Masaki Yoshida, Manika Batra, Adriana Diaz, Archana Kamath, Sanish Ambekar, Cedric Nuytinck
RP-SG Mavericks:
Players: Doo Hoi Kem, Mattias Karlsson, Harmeet Desai, Kou Lei, Ayhika Mukherjee, Mouma Das, Siddhesh Pande, Sabine Winter
DHFL Maharashtra United:
Players: Kristian Karlsson, Elizabeta Samara, Anthony Amalraj, Madhurika Patkar, Joao Monteiro, Lily Zhang, Selena Selvakumar, Utkarsh Gupta
Oilmax-Stag Yoddhas:
Players: Chih Yuan Chuang, Sofia Polcanova, Sharath Kamal, Aruna Quadri, Hana Matelova, Pooja Sahasrabudhe, Sreeja Akula, Ravindra Kotiyan
Shaze Challengers:
Players: Lee Ho Ching, Georgina Pota, Simon Gauzy, Manav Thakar, Tiago Apolonia, Divya Deshpande, Arjun Ghosh, Prapti Sen
Falcons TTC:
Players: Bernadette Szocs, Matilda Ekholm, Liam Pitchford, Alvaro Robles, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ronit Bhanja, Priyadarshini Da
