THE ULTIMATE TABLE TENNIS (UTT), India’s newest sports franchise league, promises to be a sporting breakthrough with a number of top franchises confirming their participation. Unlike other major sporting leagues being run in the country currently like IPL and ISL, UTT will have club based franchises rather than city based franchises.
The five franchises currently on board for the inaugural season are: Dabang Smashers T.T.C owned by Mrs. Radha Kapoor Khanna of Dolt Sports; RP-SG Mavericks by Mr. Sanjiv Goenka of RP-SG Group; Maharashtra United by Mr. Kapil and Mr. Dheeraj Wadhawan of Rajesh Wadhawan Group; ASK T.T.C owned by Mr. Sameer Koticha of ASK Group and Oilmax Stag Yoddhas by Mr. Kapil Garg and Mr. Vivek Kohli. The sixth franchise will be announced soon.
The Coach draft scheduled for Monday, 29th May 2017 includes a vast pool of highly experienced Indian and international coaches.
Indian Coaches: Arup Basak, A. Muralidhara Rao, N Ravichandran, Sachin Shetty, Sandeep Gupta and Soumyadeep Roy
Foreign Coaches: Elena Timina (Netherlands), Ferenc Karsai (Hungary), Francisco Santos (Portugal), Ilija Lupulesku (USA), Peter Engel (Germany) and Vesna Ojstersek (Slovenia)
The inaugural season will be played from July 13 to July 30, 2017 in three different cities - Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai. The first two legs will be held in Chennai and Delhi before UTT shifts base to Mumbai for the Finale. Each franchise will comprise of a combination of overseas and Indian players- four men and four women, along with one Indian and one International Coach each.