Bernadette Szocs and Sreeja Akula lead exciting line-up for UTT 2024 Player Draft

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Updated: 01-07-2024 18:59 IS

New Delhi [India]July 1 (ANI): Romania's World No. 10 Bernadette Szocs, rising Indian paddler Sreeja Akula, Nigerian ace Quadri Aruna and Germany's Nina Mittelham are among the top players who will lead the strong line-up for the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) 2024 Players Draft on July 10 in Mumbai.
Bernadette, 29, will be making her third appearance. Quadri, who is ranked 16th in the world, will return for his fourth appearance, while world number 17 Mittelham will make her UTT debut this year, as a total of 47 players, including eight foreign men and women, will be part of the Player Draft and 43 players will be drafted to teams, according to a UTT release.
World number 24 Sreeja, who recently created history by becoming the country's first paddler to win a WTT Contender singles title, will be the biggest attraction among the Indians, it was said.
The franchise-based league, promoted by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani under the aegis of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), has been a game-changer for Indian table tennis since its inception in 2017. It will be an eight-team league for the first time, providing a platform for young Indian paddlers to showcase their talent alongside the world’s elite players. UTT 2024 is scheduled to be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai from August 22 to September 7.
Indian star paddlers 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 already been signed by their respective franchises for the upcoming season.

As per the rules of the Player Draft, only Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, which did not retain a player, and two new teams — Jaipur Patriots and Ahmedabad SG Pipers — will participate in the opening round of the draft. All eight teams will be in action from the second round onwards, as each franchise has to field a six-member team consisting of one foreign male and female player and two Indian male and female players.

Besides Sreeja, the selection of local talent in the Player Draft includes Asian Games bronze medallists in doubles Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee, besides emerging talents such as Yashaswini Ghorpade, Diya Chitale, Poymantee Baisya and Taneesha Kotecha in the women's category, and Snehit SFR, Jeet Chandra, Manush Shah and Yashansh Malik in the men's category.
“Indian table tennis has seen tremendous growth in recent 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 table tennis has grown 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.
Other prominent foreign stars participating in the draft include 2024 World Team Table Tennis Championships silver medallists Jules Rolland and Lilian Bardet, the four-time Olympian and 2015 European Championships gold medallist in doubles, Spaniard Alvaro Robles, the 2019 World Championships silver medallist in doubles, and South Korean world number 70 Cho Seungmin.
Among the female players, Thailand's Suthasini Sawettabut (WR56), who played a key role in winning the title for Goa Challengers last year, Sakura Mori (WR27), Lily Zhang (WR30) and Orawan Paranang (WR 36) will participate in the draft, the press release said.
The format has undergone a slight change with the addition of eight teams, which will now be divided into two groups of four teams each. Each franchisee will continue to compete in five draws during the league phase, playing once against all other teams within their respective group, in addition to two randomly selected teams from the other group, determined by a draw. (ANI)