India must become a sporting powerhouse: Kiren Rijiju

New Delhi, July 25 – Shri. Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports feels that Indian table tennis is on the rise and India must become a global powerhouse in sports.

Rijiju made the comments during the opening ceremony of the third edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis season today.

Rijiju lauded the efforts of TTFI and UTT for conceptualizing the league and conceded that India has a lot of potential in TT.“In recent times, we have seen that table tennis is on the rise and they have been winning medals at many international tournaments. The sport has immense potential and I hope someday we will win an Olympic medal in table tennis,” Rijiju said during the opening ceremony.

“I compliment UTT for their efforts and believe it has played a huge role in popularising the sport in India. Leagues like these are essential for making a sport popular and I assure everyone that our ministry will do everything to support and promote table tennis in the country,” he added.

The third edition of the country’s premier table tennis league began today with defending champions Dabang Delhi T.T.C taking on Puneri Paltan at the Thyagaraj Stadium.

Squads

Dabang Delhi T.T.C.: Sathiyan G. (India), Bernadette Szocs (Romania), Jon Persson (Sweden), Parth Virmani (India), Naina (India), Krittwika Sinha Roy (India)

Puneri Paltan Table Tennis: Chuang Chih-Yuan (Chinese Taipei), Harmeet Desai (India), Ayhika Mukherjee (India), Selena Selvakumar (India), Ronit Bhanja (India), Sabine Winter (Germany)

Chennai Lions: Sharath Kamal (India), Petrissa Solja (Germany), Tiago Apolonia (Portugal), Madhurika Patkar (India), Yashini Sivasankar (India), Anirban Ghosh (India)

RP-SG Mavericks Kolkata: Manika Batra (India), Benedikt Duda (Germany), Matilda Ekholm (Sweden), Manush Shah (India), Prapti Sen (India), Sanil Shetty (India)

U Mumba TT: Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong), Manav Thakkar (India), Sutirtha Mukherjee (India), Kirill Gerassimenko (Kazakhstan), Jeet Chandra (India), Moumita Dutta (India)

Goa Challengers- Cheng I-Ching (Chinese Taipei), Archana Kamath (India), Amalraj Anthony (India), Siddhesh Pande (India), Shruti Amrute (India), Alvaro Robles (Spain).