Five top Indian paddlers retained by respective franchises ahead of UTT 2024

Indian paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manika Batra, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar have been retained by their Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) franchisees ahead of the new season.

The 2024 season of the UTT will be played in Chennai from August 22 to September 7 and the teams are gearing up for the player draft.

Sharath was retained by the Chennai Lions, while Manika will continue to play for the Bengaluru Smashers. Defending champions Goa Challengers have retained Harmeet, while Sathiyan will be a part of the Dabang Delhi Table Tennis Club and Manav will continue to don the U Mumba colours for another season.

Puneri Paltan Table Tennis have decided not to retain any player and will pick their entire squad from the players draft.

The new teams—Jaipur Patriots and Ahmedabad SG Pipers—will start the player draft and select a player of their choice in the first round. The first round of the player draft will have only three picks.

The franchises have already chosen one Indian coach and one foreigner from the coach’s draft that was held recently.

The upcoming season of the UTT will have eight teams, instead of six, and each team will now build a six-player squad that includes two foreigners (one male player and one female player).

The eight teams will be divided into two groups of four teams each. Each team will play five matches in the league stage, facing the other three teams within their respective group and two randomly selected teams from the other group once. The top two teams from each group will progress to the semifinals.

UTT 2024 retained players

Chennai Lions: Sharath Kamal

Dabang Delhi TTC: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran

Goa Challengers: Harmeet Desai

PBG Bengaluru Smashers: Manika Batra

U Mumbai TT: Manav Thakkar

Puneri Paltan TT: None