Ultimate Table Tennis: Wong Chun Ting, Han Ying top draws in inaugural TT League

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Mumbai: Men's world no. 7, Wong Chun Ting of Hong Kong, and women's world no. 9, Han Ying of Germany, are among 24 foreign players who have signed up for next month's Ultimate Table Tennis league.

Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra will lead the list of 12 men and 12 women from India out of a strong pool of 48 players at the inaugural edition of the professional table tennis league commencing on July 13, a media release said on Monday.

Wong was a bronze medalist in last year's men's World Cup and a quarter finalist in men's singles at the Liebherr 2017 World Table Tennis Championships in Duesseldorf, Germany, besides clinching a bronze medal in mixed doubles alongside Doo Hoi Kem who is also a part of UTT.

The league would be held in Chennai (July 13-20), New Delhi (July 21 to 26) and Mumbai (July 27 to 30).

Each team will have eight players – four men and four women – with an equal mix of overseas and Indian players, apart from a foreign and an Indian coach.

There will be 15 league matches, with each tie played on a nine individual match basis. Each individual match will consist of three games on a race to 11 with each game winner being awarded one point.

Each league match will have 27 points to play for and the four franchises with highest points in the league stage will advance to the semifinals.

The champion will receive Rs 1 crore, runner-up 75 lakh and the losing semifinalists, 50 lakh each. The remaining 25 lakh, from a total purse of 3 crore, will be presented to individual performers.

Each franchisee will get to pick eight players through a draft that will be conducted on June 9, the release added.

Overseas players:

Men: 1. Wong Chun Ting (Hong Kong, World No. 7), 2. Marcos Freitas (Portugal, World No. 16), 3. Tiago Apolonia (Portugal, World No. 19), 4. Stefan Fegerl (Austria, World No. 21), 5. Kou Lei (Ukraine, World No.24), 6. Panagiotis Gionis (Greece, World No.36), 7. Aruna Quadri (Nigeria, World No. 37), 8. Andrej Gacina (Croatia, World No.38), 9. Par Gerell (Sweden, World No.44), 10. Li Ping (Qatar, World No. 48), 11. Joao Monteiro (Portugal, World No. 49), 12. Liam Pitchford (England, World No. 51)

Women: 1. Han Ying (Germany, World No.9), 2. Wu Yang (China, World No.12), 3. Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong, World No.13), 4. Hu Melek (Turkey, World No.15), 5. Liu Jia (Austria, World No. 17), 6. Petrissa Solja (Germany, World No.20), 7. Lee Ho Ching (Hong Kong, World No. 33), 8. Yu Fu (Portugal, World No.35), 9. Li Qian (Poland, World No. 37), 10. Sabine Winter (Germany, World No.39), 11. Polina Mikhailova (Russia, World No.54), 12. Tetyana Bilenko (Ukraine, World No.56)

Indian players:

Men: 1. A Sharath Kamal, 2. Soumyajit Ghosh, 3. Harmeet Desai, 4. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, 5. Anthony Amalraj, 6. Sanil Shetty, 7. Jubin Kumar, 8. Manav Thakkar, 9. Ronit Bhanja, 10. Birdie Boro, 11. Arjun Ghosh, 12. Abhishek Yadav.

Women: 1. Manika Batra, 2. Mouma Das, 3. Madhurika Patkar, 4. Pooja Sahasrabudhe, 5. Suthirtha Mukherjee, 6. Mousumi Paul, 7. Krittwika Sinha Roy, 8. Archana Kamath, 9. Moumita Dutta, 10. Amurtha Pushpak, 11. Priyadarshini Das, 12. Selena Deepti Selvakumar.