Bernadette Szocs and Sreeja Akula lead the line-up for the UTT 2024 concept

The Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) has unveiled the player list for the UTT 2024 Player Draft, which will take place on July 10 in Mumbai.

Top players headlining the event include World No. 10 Bernadette Szocs from Romania, rising Indian star Sreeja Akula, Nigerian top player Quadri Aruna and Germany's Nina Mittelham.

Strong line-up for UTT 2024

29-year-old Bernadette Szocs makes her third appearance in the competition.

Quadri Aruna, ranked number 16 worldwide, returns for his fourth appearance.

World number 17 Mittelham makes her UTT debut.

The draft will feature a total of 47 players, including eight international men and women. Of these, 43 players will be included in teams.

Sreeja Akula, ranked 24th in the world and the first Indian to win a WTT Contender singles title, will be a major attraction among the Indian players.

Promoted by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani under the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), UTT has played a major role in transforming Indian table tennis since its inception in 2017.

For the first time, eight teams will participate in the competition, giving young Indian paddlers the chance to compete with the world's best.

UTT 2024 will be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai from August 22 to September 7.

Indian rowers retained through franchises

Top Indian paddlers such as Achanta Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), G Sathiyan (Dabang Delhi TTC), Harmeet Desai (Goa Challengers), Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT) and Manika Batra (PBG Bengaluru Smashers) have been retained by their respective franchises for the upcoming season.

As per the Player Draft rules, only Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, which has not retained a player, and two new teams – Jaipur Patriots and Ahmedabad SG Pipers – will participate in the opening round of the draft.

From the second round onwards, all eight teams will be in action, with each franchise having to field a six-member team consisting of one foreign male and one foreign female player and two Indian male and one foreign female players.

Rising Indian talent

Besides Sreeja Akula, the list of homegrown talent also includes Asian Games bronze medallists Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee and emerging talents such as Yashaswini Ghorpade, Diya Chitale, Poymantee Baisya and Taneesha Kotecha among the women, and Snehit SFR, Jeet Chandra, Manush Shah and Yashansh Malik among the men.

“Indian table tennis has seen a tremendous rise in the last few years and having five female players in the Top 100 is a reflection of that growth. The fresh new set of Indian faces in the Player Draft shows how much progress table tennis has made in India and we are extremely happy that the emergence of UTT as a world-class league has contributed significantly to the growth of these young players. I look forward to these players making a mark in the upcoming season,” UTT promoters Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani said in a joint statement.

Prominent foreign players

Other notable foreign stars in the draft include 2024 World Team Table Tennis Championships silver medallists Jules Rolland and Lilian Bardet of France, the four-time Olympian and 2015 European Championships gold medallist in doubles, Spain's 2019 World Championships silver medallist in doubles, and South Korea's world number 70 Cho Seungmin.

In the women's category, Thailand's Suthasini Sawettabut (WR56), who was crucial in Goa Challengers' title win last year, Sakura Mori (WR27), Lily Zhang (WR30) and Orawan Paranang (WR36) will be part of the draft.

New competition format

With the addition of eight teams, the format has changed slightly. The teams will be divided into two groups of four, with each franchise competing in five matches during the competition phase, competing once against all other teams in their group, and two randomly selected teams from the other group, determined by a draw.