Twenty-three exciting matches. Sixteen days of power-packed action. Eight teams going all guns blazing. Two nail-biting semifinals. And a new champion — U Mumba TT.
That’s how the sixth edition of Ultimate Table Tennis — the franchise-based table tennis league that’s getting bigger and better with every passing season ever since its post-pandemic return in 2023 — can be summed up.
While the Amdavadis, traditionally more interested in the business of sport than enjoying live sport, hardly thronged to the EKA Arena, those who did returned with memories worth cherishing.
After following the tournament, the paddlers, the coaching staff and the organisers from close quarters over 17 days in Ahmedabad, here is how the tournament panned out.
UTT or UMTT
Being a young sibling of the U Mumba outfit in the Pro Kabaddi League arena, a lot was expected of the U
Mumba paddlers. But just like its kabaddi counterpart, which last won a title nine seasons ago, the five editions saw the table tennis lot earn the tag of ‘underachievers.’
The team led by Bernadette Szocs — the Romanian who entered UTT as the highest-ranked paddler this season — shed the tag in style. After the first-ever player auction in UTT, where U Mumba was the first to complete its squad of six players, a lot of eyebrows were raised over its choices, especially with regard to Indian male paddlers.
But Szocs — with meticulous planning by coaches John Murphy and Jay Modak, assisted by Nishant Kulkarni — got the best out of every single individual to wipe off the ‘under’ from its tag and lead the team to glory. In fact, besides being the champion, U Mumba ended up being the only team to give at least one match to each of the six players in the squad.
Having heavily relied on youngsters — with all four Indians in Akash Pal, P.B. Abhinandh, Yashaswini
Ghorpade and Swastika Ghosh being either in teens or the early 20s — U Mumba banked on their zest. And Lilian Bardet, the Frenchman who was Szocs’ teammate in UTT 2024, brought in the maturity of an overseas paddler to form a perfect combination that went all the way.
While Szocs upped the ante when it mattered, in the big final against Jaipur Patriots, it was Yashaswini
— the Bengalurean with Maharashtrian roots — that lived up to the table tennis legacy of her surname.
If her becoming the first paddler to stun Fan Siqi, who became only the second Chinese paddler to be part of UTT, was an achievement in itself, Yashaswini went one step ahead in the semifinal.
Trailing 7-5 against senior Krittwika Sinha Roy, she displayed exemplary control over her long-pimpled backhand to win all three games, with the third off the 59th golden point of the season, and helped U Mumba enter its maiden final.
With Yashaswini playing a major role in ending Goa Challengers’ title defence, it was clear that the tournament will have a new champion. And U Mumba ensured that it didn’t have to wait longer to carve its name on the glittering trophy.
New kids on the block
For most of the last three seasons, ever since UTT switched from an eight to six-member squad format, promising Indian paddlers had to warm the bench on match days. They would be happy to be a part of the entourage and learn by training with seasoned pros, with very little — or virtually none — game-time.
Season six witnessed a welcome change on that front as eight Indian paddlers made their UTT debuts over the fortnight. They were Akash Pal, Abhinandh and Swastika Ghosh (U Mumba), Divyansh
Srivastava (Ahmedabad SG Pipers), Sayali Wani (Dempo Goa Challengers), Ananya Chande (Kolkata
ThunderBlades), Taneesha Kotecha (PBG Pune Jaguars) and Payas Jain (Chennai Lions).
The fact that most of these eight paddlers — barring Swastika, Divyansh and Ananya — had spent at least a season in UTT earlier speaks about the desperation and the desire of teams to try out new talent on the big stage. It also indicates the rising quality of young Indian talent.
“It’s a great sign for Indian table tennis. The more young talent on display at UTT, the better it is. The youngsters are right up there when it comes to skills, are confident irrespective of the opponents and are fearless in their approach. It’s a great sign for the future,” said Sachin Shetty, the Jaipur Patriots coach.
Top Indian paddlers MIA
While the promising youngsters were making a splash and some of the top global paddlers were in action, the absence of India’s star paddlers was a bit of a dampener for UTT.
Three of the top Indians — Manav Thakkar and the new National men’s champion Manush Shah along with Commonwealth Games queen Manika Batra — did not feature in the season.
With A. Sharath Kamal having hung up his boots after a glittering career, Manush and Manav — a
Barodian and a Surti — could have drawn a local crowd in their home state. But both opted against registering for the auction.
While the Indian table tennis corridors are abuzz with multiple theories for the bespectacled duo’s decision to skip UTT 2025, the UTT organisers clarified that was only due to the clash of the tournament schedule with the duo’s commitments in European leagues.
Manika, on the other hand, pulled out at the last-minute due to an injury after featuring in the World Championship towards the end of the last month. It jeopardised Ahmedabad SG Pipers’ season, although the lanky paddler did turn up to support the team for its inaugural match.
“It’s critical for all the top Indian players to feature in UTT. It helps them raise their stature and also the tournament’s,” said Sweden’s Tobias Bergman, the Kolkata ThunderBlades coach.
“In my home country, and all over Europe, there is a lot of interest about UTT and if the top European players get to compete with the best from India, it will be an ideal scenario.”
The fact that the trio featured in a WTT event during the UTT’s latter stages also did not send a right signal to the table tennis fraternity. It will hopefully be taken care of in the seasons to come.
Amending the format
Despite the final qualification spot being sealed on the last day, for a league like UTT that’s still trying to attract interest from general sport fans, a simpler format would augur well.
At the moment, the eight teams play five league matches. Not only is it confusing for a fan trying to keep pace with the line-ups, it also creates a not-so-ideal situation for the franchises, both in terms of form and fixtures.
No doubt an all-play-all format will mean there will be 28 league games instead of the existing 20, but with double-headers on most days, the three-week tournament window can be respected.
While the idea can be food for thought, John Murphy, coach of U Mumba, had another suggestion.
“Instead of following the set sequence of men’s singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles, reverse men’s singles and reverse women’s singles, the team winning the toss should be allowed to choose whether to start with a male or female player,” Murphy said.
“For a team like us with Bernadette Szocs, we’d want her to open the tie. It could also prevent the final singles from always being a women’s match.”
If implemented, the tournament will add another dimension to the planning of the teams and may keep most matches alive till the end.
Vitamin M
A franchise league is nothing but a commercial product. For most non-cricket sports leagues in India, it results in the owners and the promoters bleeding to death.
UTT is an exception, since it’s backed by co-promoters who are passionate about the sport and not all interested in making money through the league.
‘Let the franchise owners break even first. And making money is not the only objective of UTT’ seems to be the motto of Niraj Bajaj and Vita Dani – two of the leading industrialists who have joined hands for UTT.
Thanks to its consecutive titles, Dempo Goa Challengers became the first team to enter the green on the balance sheet.
Steady growth
While two others are likely to break even in the next edition, Vita is pleased with the steady growth of the league in terms of numbers – both financial and in terms of viewership.
At least a couple of teams, including new entrants Kolkata ThunderBlades, managed to raise in excess of ₹50 lakh through jersey sponsorships. It is a welcome sign for a relatively small-scale league like UTT.
“It will take a little time but we are moving in the right direction and quickly. For us, as league owners, our ROI is in how Indian table tennis does more than financials because we are not here to only make money. It is more important that as a country, we do well,” Vita said.
