Ace table tennis player Quadri Aruna will lead a formidable lineup of players in Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), UTT Season 4. The tournament will feature renowned Indian stars including Achanta Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, and Manika Batra.
UTT Season 4: World No. 12 Quadri Aruna leads exciting players line-up; Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan and Manika are key attractions among Indians
Aruna, one of Africa’s greatest table tennis players and currently ranked 12th in the world, returns to India for the third time after participating in the first two seasons of UTT. Joining him in Season 4 will be Benedikt Duda of Germany (World No. 32), Omar Assar of Egypt (World No. 34), and Alvaro Robles of Spain, who won a Doubles Silver at the 2019 World Championships. The tournament is scheduled to take place at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune from July 13-30.
In the women’s category, international players in the draft pool include Lily Zhang from the USA (WR24), Yangzi Liu from Australia (WR32), Suthasini Sawettabut from Thailand (WR33), and Barbora Balazova from Slovakia (WR44).
The Indian lineup will be headlined by veteran paddler Sharath Kamal, who holds the record of 10 national titles, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, India’s top-ranked men’s player (WR51), and Manika Batra (World No. 39). They will be joined by promising young talents such as SSreeja Akula, the reigning national champion and back-to-back Nationals Title winner, U-19 boys national title holder Payas Jain, Diya Chitale, S Fidel R Snehit, and Ankur Bhattacharjee.
The franchise-based UTT league is promoted by Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani under the Table Tennis Federation of India. The upcoming season will feature six teams: Bengaluru Smashers, Chennai Lions, Dabang Delhi TTC, Goa Challengers, Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, and U Mumba TT.
Following the UTT Season 4 Coach Draft, where the coaches were selected, each franchise will now focus on building a strong six-member squad at the UTT Season 4 Player Draft in Mumbai next month. Each team can select two foreign players (one male and one female) from a pool of 40 available players, along with four Indian players (two male and two female). Each team also has the option to retain one player from the previous season.
PLAYERS LIST:
| Foreign Players | |
| Men | Women |
| Quadri Aruna (NGR, WR12) | Lily Zhang (USA, WR24) |
| Kirill Gerassimenko (KAZ, WR54) | Suthasini Sawettabut (THA, WR33) |
| Benedikt Duda (GER, WR32) | Natalia Bajor (POL, WR54) |
| Jon Persson (SWE, WR50) | Barbora Balazova (SVK, WR44) |
| Alvaro Robles (ESP, WR43) | Hana Matelova (CZE, WR53) |
| Omar Assar (EGY, WR34) | Yangzi Liu (AUS, WR32) |
| Indian Players | |
| Men | Women |
| Sathiyan Gnanasekaran | Sreeja Akula |
| Manush Shah | Sutirtha Mukherjee |
| Harmeet Desai | Diya Chitale |
| Manav Thakkar | Reeth Rishya |
| Achanta Sharath Kamal | Ayhika Mukherjee |
| Sanil Shetty | Manika Batra |
| Snehit SFR | Moumita Dutta |
| Anirban Ghosh | Anusha Kutumbale |
| Sudhanshu Grover | Archana Kamath |
| Jeet Chandra | Poymantee Baisya |
| Ronit Bhanja | Mouma Das |
| Anthony Amalraj | Takeme Sarkar |
| Payas Jain | Prapti Sen |
| Ankur Bhattacharjee | Krittwika Sinha Roy |
