The Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex — off the Mumbai-Bangalore National Highway’s Pune bypass — is constantly buzzing with activity. But the presence of a majority of top athletes in an extended suburb goes unnoticed for the locals.
The return of the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT), after a prolonged, pandemic-induced break, is no exception. Except for a handful of table tennis fraternity, there is hardly any awareness of the fact that the likes of A. Sharath Kamal, Manika Batra and G. Sathiyan will be rubbing shoulders with and against top paddlers across the globe in table tennis’ IPL avatar.
But the table tennis circle is excited at its core, with the return of UTT after almost four years. When pandemic hit in 2020, not too many were optimistic about whether UTT, founded in 2017 with 11 Sports’ Vita Dani and Arjun Award-recipient Niraj Bajaj as its promoters, would witness its fourth edition.
