Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 will begin on Thursday at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune. It gives returns after four years. The last edition of the tournament was played in 2019, after which it was canceled multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 will see four of the six teams, Bengaluru Smashers, Chennai Lions, Dabang Delhi TTC, Goa Challengers, Puneri Paltan Table Tennis and U Mumba TT compete for the TT trophy. Each team will have six players, four Indian and two foreign players.

Meanwhile, Chennai Lions is led by Commonwealth Games champion Sharath Kamal and they are the defending champions. Puneri Paltan has world number 22 Omar Assar of Egypt. The Bengaluru Smash includes India's number one women's singles player Manika Batra. U Mumba is led by Nigeria's Aruna Quadri, who is ranked No. 18 in the world.

At the same time, Dabang Delhi are the 2018 champions, with top-order players like  Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and national champion Sreeja Akula. Asian Games and Commonwealth Games medalist Anthony Amalraj is also in the team.

Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 will be a single-legged round-robin league format tournament. The final will be played on 30 July. Each team will play five ties in the league stage. The top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals. Live streaming and telecast will be available in India.

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Where to watch Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 live

The Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 will be telecast live on Sports 18 TV channel in India. Live streaming of UTT 2023 will be available on the Jio Cinema.

Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 Squads:

• Bengaluru Smashers: Manika Batra, Sanil Shetty, Poymantee Baisya, Ankur Bhattacharjee, Kirill Gerassimenko (Kazakhstan) and Natalia Bajor (Poland)
• Chennai Lions: Sharath Kamal, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Payas Jain, Prapti Sen, Yangzi Liu (Australia) and Benedikt Duda (Germany)
• Dabang Delhi TTC: Sathiyan G, Sreeja Akula, Ayhika Mukherjee, Anirban Ghosh, Jon Persson (Sweden) and Barbora Balazova (Slovakia)
• Goa Challengers: Harmeet Desai, T Reeth Rishya, Kwittwika Sinha Roy, Anthony Amalraj, Suthasini Sawettabut (Thailand) and Alvaro Robles (Spain)
• Puneri Paltan Table Tennis: Manush Shah, Archana Kamath, Snehit SFR, Anusha Kutumbale, Omar Assar (Egypt) and Hana Matelova (Czech Republic)
• U Mumba TT: Manav Thakkar, Diya Chitale, Mouma Das, Sudhanshu Grover, Lily Zhang (USA) and Aruna Quadri (Nigeria)

Ultimate Table Tennis 2023 schedule:

• July 13, Thursday: Puneri Paltan vs Chennai Lions
• July 14, Friday: U Mumba vs Bengaluru Smashers 
• July 15, Saturday: Dabang Delhi vs Goa Challengers 
• July 16, Sunday: Chennai Lions vs U Mumba
• July 17, Monday: Puneri Paltan vs Goa Challengers
• July 18, Tuesday: Bengaluru Smashers vs Dabang Delhi 
• July 19, Wednesday: Goa Challengers vs U Mumba 
• July 20, Thursday: Chennai Lions vs Bengaluru Smashers 
• July 21, Friday: Dabang Delhi vs Puneri Paltan 
• July 22, Saturday: Goa Challengers vs Chennai Lions 
• July 23, Sunday: Puneri Paltan vs Bengaluru Smashers 
• July 24, Monday: Dabang Delhi vs U Mumba 
• July 25, Tuesday: Bengaluru Smashers vs Goa Challengers 
• July 26, Wednesday: Chennai Smashers vs Dabang Delhi 
• July 27, Thursday: U Mumba vs Puneri Paltan 
• July 28, Friday: Semi-final 1 
• July 29, Saturday: Semi-final 2
• July 30, Sunday: Final

All matches start at 7:30 PM Indian Standard Time (IST).

The World Number 30 Manika Batra stunned the table tennis arena by defeating World Number 14 Bernadette Scoz from Romania, becoming the first ever Indian to reach the WTT quarterfinals in France.

A four-time Commonwealth medalist and an Olympian, Manika Batra, survived a 5 point defeat in the second set, winning the rest two later. On Friday, against Scoz, she saved two game points in the third game to keep herself ahead. finally sealing the tie in the next game, converting her second march point.

Manika won 3-1 (11-9, 6-11, 13-11, 11-9) in 29 minutes against the eighth-seeded Scoz in a round-16 match. Nevertheless, Manika enjoys a safe lead against Scoz- 6-5.

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Manika Batra to face Tianyi

Manika Batra will play the quarterfinal on Saturday. There she will meet the World number 21 Qian Tianyi from China.

Tianyi reached the quarterfinal after defeating Wang Yidi by 3-0 (11-7, 11-9, 13-11) in another R-16 match.

In the first round, Manika's first prey was USA's Lily Zhang, against whom she won in a straight set of 3-0 (11-4, 11-8, 12-10)

The other Indian in queue in women's singles, Sreeja Akula, however, got defeated by World No. 13 Adriana Diaz of Puerto Rico. Diaz defeated Akula by 2-3 (11-6, 7-11, 1-11, 11-8, 8-11)

Paris Olympics 2024 participant, World No. 22 table tennis player, Sreeja Akula has been ruled out of the Ultimate Table Tennis 2024 with a stress fracture, UTT announced on Monday. The tournament will be held in Chennai from August 22 to September 7.

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“I’m sorry to share that I have been diagnosed with a stress fracture and on my doctor’s advice, I’ll need to rest for six weeks, which unfortunately means I won’t be able to participate in UTT 2024,” Akula said in a statement.

Reached pre-quarterfinals in Paris Olympics

Recently, Sreeja Akula participated in the Paris Olympics where she reached the pre-quarterfinals of the women’s singles event, becoming only the second Indian after Manika Batra.

The 26-year-old defeated Christina Kallberg 11-4, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8, 4-0 in the first round. In the third round, Sreeja delivered another stellar performance when she beat Zeng Jian of Singapore 9-11, 12-10, 11-4, 11-5, 10-12, 4-2. She, however, went down fighting against World No. 1 Sun Yingsha in the quarterfinals 10-12, 10-12, 8-11, 3-11, 0-4.

Also Read: Paris Olympics 2024 Medal tally update: Top nations and India's position

First Indian to win WTT Contender

Apart from that, Sreeja Akula also became the first Indian to win a singles title at the WTT Contender level by finishing at the top at the WTT Contender Lagos. She is also a gold medallist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and a double gold medallist at the 2019 South Asian Games.

Sreeja was drafted to the Jaipur Patriots for UTT 2024 but in a statement released on Monday, the 26-year-old informed that she will need a resting period of six weeks. Sreeja would be replaced by the U19 Youth National Champion and UTT debutant Nithyashree Mani.

Hello and welcome to Sportz Point's coverage of India At Paris Olympics 2024 Day 12 (7th August) as Indian athletes look for more medals at the Olympics. 

So far, India's three medals have come from shooting, and with the shooting event getting over, our focus has shifted to athletics.

Throughout the day, this is Abishek Goswami along with Payal Debnath and Koushik Biswas will bring you all the updates from the web desk. 

Follow us on Twitter for all the updates. Join our Telegram and WhatsApp channels for all the news and scores. 

Hello and welcome to Sportz Point's another coverage of India at Paris Olympics 2024 as Indian athletes look to create history in Paris. 

This is Abhishek Goswami and Payal Debnath bringing you all the updates from the web desk.

Lakshya Sen will be in action in the men's singles badminton bronze medal match while Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka will be participating in the Skeet Mixed Team qualification. 

Follow us on Twitter for all the updates. Join our Telegram and WhatsApp channels for all the news and scores. 

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Hello and welcome to Sportz Point's LIVE Coverage of the Paris Olympics 2024. Today, we will bring you all the updates of Day 3 (29th July) of India at Paris Olympics 2024 as Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta will be in action in the 10m Air Rifle finals to bring home medals.

This is Abishek Goswami, and Koushik Biswas will join us later to give you all the updates on Day 3 from our web desk.

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