By Admin 
Harmeet Desai and Sreeja Akula were retained by Goa Challengers TTC and Dabang Delhi TTC by employing the Right to Match card, while Manika Batra was signed by Ahmedabad SG Pipers after PBG Pune Jaguars let go of the star female paddler in the Player Auction ahead of the Ultimate Table Tennis’ sixth edition.
“It was a strategic call. She was with our team for two seasons, and we realised in both the seasons, we were slightly weak in the overseas female paddlers’ section,” Punit Balan, the owner of the Pune Jaguars, told The Hindu after the auction proceedings were held at a luxury hotel here on Tuesday.
“The new coaching staff thought about looking more at new players, and that’s why we let go of Manika. We are extremely happy to have invested in Taneesha, who has already risen among the top female paddlers in India and is ready to take on the mantle.”
Token values at auction
The UTT meanwhile adopted the auction model for the first time after conducting a player draft for each of its previous five editions. Each team was allotted a notional purse of 50 lakh and had to sign six players — three male and three females, including an overseas male and female paddler each.
The value attached to a player will not be the actual amount. Each player has been contracted with the UTT for an undisclosed fee. Still, the franchise owners indulged in a fierce bidding war, with Fan Siqi, the only Chinese participant in UTT 2025, emerging as the most valued paddler at 19.70 lakh.
Among the Indians, Harmeet was RTMed after four teams concluded the bidding at 14 lakh tokens, while S.F.R. Snehit fetched almost five times the amount of his base price of 2 lakh tokens. Olympian Sutirtha Mukherjee remained unsold.
The 2025 editions will be played in Ahmedabad from May 29 to June 15.
The squads: Goa Challengers TTC: Zeng Jian (17.20 lakh tokens), Harmeet Desai (RTM, 14 L), Tiago Apolonia (7 L), Ronit Bhanja (4 L), Krittwika Sinha Roy (4 L), Sayali Wani (3.70 L).
Chennai Lions: Kiril Gerassimenko (12.40 L), Payas Jain (11.60 L), Sudhanshu Grover (2 L), Fan Siqi (19.70 L), Nikhat Banu (2 L), Jennifer Varghese (2 L).
Dabang Delhi TTC: Diya Chitale (RTM, 14.10 L), Maria Xiao (12.60 L), G. Sathiyan (10 L), Quek Izaac (7 L), Suhana Saini (2.3 L), Sourav Saha (2.1 L).
PBG Pune Jaguars: Alvaro Robles (18.10 L), Anirban Ghosh (4 L), Mudit Dani (2.20 L), Dina Meshref (11 L), Reeth Rishya (4 L), Taneesha Kotecha (RTM, 4 L).
U Mumba TT: Lilian Bardet (11.10 L), Akash Pal (RTM, 4 L), P.B. Abhinandh (2.10 L), Bernadette Szocs (15.30 L), Yashaswini Ghorpade (8.60 L), Swastika Ghosh (7 L).
Kolkata ThunderBlades: Quadri Aruna (11 L), Ankur Bhattacharjee (RTM, 11.40 L), Deepit Patil (2 L), Adriana Diaz (19.30 L), Selena Selvakumar (3.90 L), Ananya Chande (2 L).
Jaipur Patriots: Jaipur Patriots: Britt Eerland (11.1 L), Kanak Jha (11 L), Sreeja Akula (RTM, 11 L), Jeet Chandra (5.7 L), Pritha Vartikar (2.4 L), Yashansh Malik (2 L).
Ahmedabad SG Pipers: Manika Batra (12 L), Ricardo Walther (11.6 L), SFR Snehit (9.9 L), Giorgia Piccolin (7 L), Divyansh Srivastava (4 L), Yashini Sivashankar (2 L).
Published – April 15, 2025 07:35 pm IST