Five franchises named for Ultimate Table Tennis league

The inaugural edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), Indias newest sports franchise league, will be played from July 13 to July 30 in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai, it was announced here on Sunday.

Five franchises currently on board for the inaugural season are: Dabang Smashers T.T.C., owned by Radha Kapoor Khanna of Dolt Sports; RP-SG Mavericks, owned by Sanjiv Goenka of RP-SG Group; Maharashtra United, owned by Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of Rajesh Wadhawan Group; ASK T.T.C owned by Sameer Koticha of ASK Group; and Oilmax Stag Yoddhas owned by Kapil Garg and Vivek Kohli. The sixth franchise will be announced soon, according to a release.

The coach draft scheduled for Monday includes a vast pool of highly experienced Indian and international coaches.

Among the Indian coaches are Arup Basak, A. Muralidhara Rao, N. Ravichandran, Sachin Shetty, Sandeep Gupta and Soumyadeep Roy.

The foreign coaches will be Elena Timina (the Netherlands), Ferenc Karsai (Hungary), Francisco Santos (Portugal), Ilija Lupulesku (US), Peter Engel (Germany), and Vesna Ojstersek (Slovenia).

The first two legs will be held in Chennai and Delhi before the UTT shifts base to Mumbai for the final. 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.

--IANS

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