The fourth season of Ultimate Table Tennis is all set to begin on July 13, on Thursday, at Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune. The League will witness a total of six teams- Chennai Lions, Dabang Delhi TTC, Goa Challengers, Puneri Paltan TTC, U Mumba TT, and Bengaluru Smashers.
The last edition of the franchise-based league took place in 2019. Chennai Lions are the defending champions. Led by the legendary Indian Table Tennis star Achanta Sharath Kamal, the Chennai team defeated Dabang Delhi TTC in the final of the 2019 edition.
Dabang Delhi TTC, the runners-up of the last season, lifted the trophy in 2018. In 2017, Falcons TTC became the first-ever champion of the Ultimate Table Tennis.
Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 Tournament Format
The Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 will take place in Round Robin format. Each team will face each other once, starting from July 13. The league games end on July 27. The teams which finish top four on the points table will feature in the semi-final. The winners of the semi-finals will play for the trophy on July 30.
Earlier, in April, there was a player draft at the National Sports Club of India in Mumbai.
Puneri Paltan and Goa Challengers were offered the first picks as they chose not to use their right to retain a player. On the other hand, Dabang Delhi TTC retained Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, and Chennai Lions retained Achanta Sharath Kamal. Bengaluru Smashers retained Manika Batra.
From July 13, the teams will face off in a total of five matches: Men's and Women's Singles, Mixed Doubles, Men's and Women's singles.
Notably, four different players must feature in the singles competition. Any two players from the four can participate in the mixed doubles.
The matches in the tournament will have three games in total, and each game will have 11 points. If the player/team gets tied at 10-all, the 11th point will be a golden point.
In total, there will be 15 games. The team with the maximum number of games will be decided as the winner.
Ultimate Table Tennis 2023: Full Schedule
League Matches:
The defending champions Chennai Lions will kick off the tournament against Puneri Paltan TTC.
July 13, Thursday
Chennai Lions vs Puneri Paltan TTC
July 14, Friday
U Mumba TT vs Bengaluru Smashes
July 15, Saturday
Dabang Delhi TTC vs Goa Challengers
July 16, Sunday
Chennai Lions vs U Mumba TT
July 17, Monday
Puneri Paltan TTC vs Goa Challengers
July 18, Tuesday
Dabang Delhi TTC vs Bengaluru Smashes
July 19, Wednesday
U Mumba TT vs Goa Challengers
July 20, Thursday
Chennai Lions vs Bengaluru Smashes
July 21, Friday
Dabang Delhi TTC vs Puneri Paltan TTC
July 22, Saturday
Chennai Lions vs Goa Challengers
July 23, Sunday
Puneri Paltan TTC vs Bengaluru Smashes
July 24, Monday
Dabang Delhi TTC vs U Mumba TT
July 25, Tuesday
Bengaluru Smashes vs Goa Challengers
July 26, Wednesday
Dabang Delhi TTC vs Chennai Lions
July 27, Thursday
U Mumba TT vs Puneri Paltan TTC
Knockout matches
July 28, Friday
Semi-final 1
July 29, Saturday
Semi-final 2
July 30, Sunday
Grand Final
Ultimate Table Tennis 2023: Complete Squad
Chennai Lions
Coaches: Jorg Bitzigelo, Somnath Ghosh
Indian Players: Achanta Sharath Kamal, Payas Jain, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Prapti Sen
Overseas Players: Yangzi Liu of Australia and Benedikt Duda of Germany.
Dabang Delhi TTC
Coaches: Murlidhara Rao, Slobodan Grujic
Indian Players: Sathiyan G, Ayhika Mukherjee, Anirban Ghosh, Sreeja Akula
Overseas Players: Barbora Balazova of Slovakia and Jon Persson of Sweden
Goa Challengers
Coaches: Parag Agrawal, Elena Timina
Indian Players: T Reeth Rishya, Harmeet Desai, Kwittwika Sinha Roy, Anthony Amalraj
Overseas Players: Suthasini Sawettabut of Thailand and Alvaro Robles of Spain
U Mumba TT
Coaches: Francisco Santos, Anshul Garg
Indian Players: Manav Thakkar, Diya Chitale, Mouma Das, Sudhanshu Grover
Overseas Players: Lily Zhang of the US and Aruna Quadri of Nigeria
Puneri Paltan
Coaches: N.Ravichandran, Zoltan Batorfi
Indian Players: Manush Shah, Snehit SFR, Anusha Kutumbale, Archana Kamath
Overseas Players: Hana Matelova of the Czech Republic and Omar Assar of Egypt.