Ultimate Table Tennis 2018: Aruna Quadri, Sofia Polcanova sign up for second season starting in June

The much-awaited second season of the CEAT Ultimate Table Tennis is all set to begin in June this year. India’s first-ever professional table tennis league will see some of the world’s finest paddlers descend on the Indian soil. The inaugural season was well received by the players, their respective International Federations and the audiences. [caption id=“attachment_4318051” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Sofia Polcanova, Sabine Winter and Aruna Quadri. Agencies[/caption] In a clear example of the impact of the debut season of the Ultimate Table Tennis league, four of last year’s players — Men’s World No 20 Aruna Quadri, World No 34 Kou Lei, World No 22 Sofia Polcanova and World No 72 Sabine Winter — return for the second edition. In addition, some of the notable new signings for the second edition are men’s World No 37 Alvaro Robles from Spain and women’s World No 20 and 25, Georgina Pota and Matilda Ekholm. African Champion and one of the best offensive players on the table, Quadri, has had a great run in 2017 having won the Polish Open and achieved a World ranking of 20 — the best in his career so far. He played for Oilmax Stag Yoddhas in the inaugural season where he went on to win a total of 198 points for his team. Oilmax Stag Yoddhas finished last season at fifth place. Joining Aruna for the second edition of CEAT UTT is Kou Lei who plied his trade alongside Marcos Freitas for the Dabang Smashers TTC. Kou Lei recently won the Oman Fibre Optic International Open held in Muscat. He scored a total of 174 points during the first edition to help Dabang Smashers TTC reach third position in the league. Polcanova and Winter are back for the second season as well. They played alongside ace Indian paddler Sharath Kamal for RP-SG Mavericks last season and together scored 416 points for the team that finished at the bottom of the league table. The six franchises for CEAT UTT are Dabang Smashers TTC, RP-SG Mavericks, DHFL Maharashtra United, Falcons TTC, Oilmax-Stag Yoddhas and Shaze Challengers. Falcons TTC emerged champions of the inaugural CEAT Ultimate Table Tennis.