Ultimate Table Tennis league: Hyderabad’s Sreeja to play for Delhi, Snehit for Paltans

Akula Sreeja was picked by Dabang Delhi in the player draft for the season 4 of the Ultimate Table Tennis league in Mumbai on Friday

Hyderabad: Telangana paddler and Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold medallist Akula Sreeja was picked by Dabang Delhi in the player draft for the season 4 of the Ultimate Table Tennis league in Mumbai on Friday.

Another Hyderabad paddler S Fidel R Snehit has been drafted into the Puneri Paltans’ side. U Mumba TT snapped world number 12 Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna. Veteran Anthony Amalraj and Harmeet Desai, who were both part of the Indian men’s team that won a bronze at the 2018 Asian Games, and Alvaro Robles from Spain went to Goa Challengers. Four players – Sharath Kamal (Chennai Lions), Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (Dabang Delhi TTC), Manika Batra (Bengaluru Smashers) and Manav Thakkar (U Mumba TT) – had been retained by their respective teams ahead of the player draft.

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Each team could pick four Indian players – two males and as many females – as well as a couple of foreign players, including one male and a female during the draft held here at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) premises.

While the third season of the UTT was held in 2019, the fourth edition is being organised after a long gap. The upcoming season will be held at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune from July 13-30 next month.

Omar Assar from Egypt was the first player to be selected in the draft and following him was Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut. While Assar was picked by Puneri Paltan, Suthasini went to the Goa Challengers. Australia’s Yangzi Liu joined Indian star Sharath at the Chennai Lions in the second round.

USA’s Lily Zhang was picked by U Mumba, Kazakhstan’s Kirill Gerassimenko went to Bengaluru Smashers, India’s Manush Shah, Desai and Akula, who won the Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold last year, went to Puneri Paltan, Goa Challengers and Dabang Delhi respectively.