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          Ultimate Table Tennis 2023: All you need to know about Season 4

          (From L-R): Sutirtha Mukherjee, Manika Batra, Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran ESPN/UTT
          • Zenia D'Cunha
          Jul 12, 2023, 12:10 PM ET

          Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), India's franchise-based table tennis league, is back after a four-year break with its fourth season starting Thursday. The third season of the UTT was held in 2019 with Chennai Lions, led by Achanta Sharath Kamal, winning the title. They will start this season against hosts Puneri Paltan.

          Here's a lowdown on everything that you need to know about UTT Season 4.

          When?

          The season will run from July 13 to 30. All matches will start at 7:30pm IST.

          Where?

          All matches will be held at one venue - the Balewadi Sports Complex, Pune.

          Who are the teams?

          There are six team this season - Bengaluru Smashers, Chennai Lions, Dabang Delhi TTC, Goa Challengers, Puneri Paltan Table Tennis and U Mumba TT.

          Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), G Sathiyan (Dabang Delhi TTC), Manika Batra (Bengaluru Smashers) and Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT) were retained by their franchises while a Player Draft was held in June for the rest of the squads. (Full list of squads below)

          Who to watch out for?

          Given the recent performances of Indians at WTT Contenders and with the Asian Games to be held in September, all eyes will be on the Indian contingent.

          Retained stars Sharath, Sathiyan, Manika and Manav have been the poster players for the league and will look to continue. The 41-year-old Sharath has already said that he is looking at UTT as practice for the Asian Games as well as the start of his preparation for the Paris Olympics, which are exactly a year away.

          The in-form Indians - Sutirtha Mukherjee, part of the Chennai Lions, and Ayhika Mukherjee, Dabang Delhi, won the doubles title at WTT Contender in Tunis last month. Harmeet Desai, who stunned two higher-ranked Asian players to reach the semi-final and win bronze at the WTT Contender in Lagos last month, will turn out for Goa Challengers.

          Sreeja Akula, national champion and one of the standout players from last year's Commonwealth Games, will be part of the Delhi Dabang.

          Among the big international players in the field are Nigerian veteran Quadri Aruna (WR 16), USA's Lily Zhang (WR 24) - who was only 12 when she became the youngest-ever player to make the USA women's national team and Omar Assar (WR 22) - who became only the second African player to reach the quarterfinals of the World Table Tennis Championship earlier this year.

          The young and promising Indians to watch out for are Payas Jain (Chennai Lions) - the 19-year-old is the only Indian to clinch three medals in the Asian Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championship and also won gold at the Asian Junior Championship and Diya Chitale (U Mumba) - the 20-year-old has already played for India at the CWG and has two medals in the WTT Youth Contender tournaments as well.

          What is the competition format?

          Each tie will have five matches - Men's Singles, Women's Singles, Mixed Doubles, Men's Singles, Women's Singles in that order. Importantly, four different players have to feature in the singles matches, with two from those four available for the mixed doubles match.

          Each match will have 3 games, won by the first to score 11 points. In the event that scores are level at 10-all, the 11th point will be a Golden Point to decide the winner. Each tie will have 15 games and the winner will be decided by the number of total games won.

          A total of 18 matches will be played among the six franchisees. The League Stage will see all franchisees competing with each other once. There will be one match every day from July 13 to 27, post which the top four ranked sides will progress to the semifinals scheduled for July 28 and 29. The final will be played on July 30.

          How to watch?

          The tournament will be broadcasted live on Sports 18 and streamed on Jio Cinema.

          Full Squads

          Bengaluru Smashers

          Coaches: Sachin Shetty, Vesna Ojstersek

          Players: Manika Batra, Kirill Gerassimenko, Sanil Shetty, Natalia Bajor, Poymantee Baisya and Jeet Chandra.

          Chennai Lions

          Coaches: Somnath Ghosh, Jorg Bitzigeio

          Players: Achanta Sharath Kamal, Yangzi Liu, Benedikt Duda, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Payas Jain and Prapti Sen

          Goa Challengers

          Coaches: Elena Timina, Parag Agrawal

          Players: Suthasini Sawettabut, Harmeet Desai, Alvaro Robles, T Reeth Rishya, Krittwika Sinha Roy and Anthony Amalraj

          Dabang Delhi TTC

          Coaches: Slobodan Grujic, A. Muralidhara Rao

          Players: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Sreeja Akula, Barbora Balazova, Ayhika Mukherjee, Anirban Ghosh and Jon Persson

          Puneri Paltan Table Tennis

          Coaches: N Ravichandran, Zoltan Batorfi

          Players: Omar Assar, Manush Shah, Archana Kamath, Snehit SFR, Anusha Kutumbale and Hana Matelova

          U Mumba TT

          Coaches: Anshul Garg, Francisco Santos

          Players: Manav Thakkar, Lily Zhang, Aruna Quadri, Diya Chitale, Mouma Das and Sudhanshu Grover