The Ultimate Table Tennis League kicked off in amazing fashion last night as Indian Table Tennis got a flavour of a franchise-based league, thanks to this wonderful initiative pulled off by 11evensports.
Indian Table Tennis stars are tirelessly working towards putting India on the global TT map and this league will help a lot of them play with and against some of the top stars of World Table Tennis.
Also Read: New format in Ultimate Table Tennis League
And what’s even better is that the Indian audience would be exposed to this beautiful game, and youngsters might start picking it up, following the footsteps of some of their heroes from the sport.
For any sport to get popular you need to have a few heroes to look up to, and the UTT could help make some in the next fortnight or so.
One such hero emerged last night, when Sanil Shetty of Mumbai, ranked 201 in the world beat World number 31 Apolonia 2 games to 1 in an enthralling encounter.
Sanil wasn’t given much of a chance before the start of the game, and the first set proved why that was so, as Apolonia cruised through, making Sanil seem a little out of place.
But Sanil wasn’t going to be a pushover, as he rallied hard in the second to tie it up at 10-10, after which the ‘golden point’ was played, which Sanil won in emphatic fashion, to tie it up at 1 game all.
Sanil, who is a brilliant mover, used his massive forehand to good advantage, hurrying Apolonia and pushing him back on various occasions. He used the top spin to good effect, created angles and finished off the points with authority to clinch the decider 11-8 and pull off a huge upset.
Earlier in the day Sharath Kamal, India’s Table Tennis god, lost to Par Gerell 2-1 in three gruelling sets of Table Tennis. Emotions were running high for Kamal, as he tried to to avenge is two previous defeats to Gerell, but he couldn’t find his way through, as Gerell used his serves to great effect.
Falcons TTC won the encounter 15-12 as Wu Yang and Par Gerell played out of their skins to stage a stunning comeback(Falcons were 5-7 down).
Shaze Challengers take on Dabang Smashers T.T.C in the second match of the league today. Do tune into Star Sports Select at 7:30 pm today!
