Five franchises med for Ultimate TT league

Mumbai, May 28: The iugural edition of the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), Indias newest sports franchise league, will be played from July 13 to July 30 in Cheni, Delhi and Mumbai, it was announced here on Sunday.

Five franchises currently on board for the iugural season are: Dabang Smashers T.T.C., owned by Radha Kapoor Khan 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 intertiol 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 Ele Timi (the Netherlands), Ferenc Karsai (Hungary), Francisco Santos (Portugal), Ilija Lupulesku (US), Peter Engel (Germany), and Ves Ojstersek (Slovenia).

The first two legs will be held in Cheni and Delhi before the UTT shifts base to Mumbai for the fil. Each franchise will comprise of a combition of overseas and Indian players -- four men and four women, along with one Indian and one intertiol coach each. IANS