United Table Tennis league concludes coaches draft

A total of 12 coaches - equal mix of Indian and foreign - were part of a draft system conducted here today by the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) to select coaches for each of the six franchises in the inaugural edition of the league to be held next month.

Each franchise had to pick one Indian and foreign coach from the draft, said a press release from UTT.

RP-SG Mavericks received the rights for the first pick and went all out to sign foreign coach Peter Engel (Germany) who has been a head coach of Netherlands from 1994-1999.

Maharashtra United then got Ferenc Karsai (Hungary) who has been the men s national coach for three countries - Austria, Canada and Belgium.

ASK Spinners picked the first Indian coach, Soumyadeep Roy, before Oilmax Stag Yoddhas had the next bid and chose India's Sandeep Gupta.

Dabang Smashers TTC picked Ilija Lupulesku (USA), while the final franchise, Challengers, opted for one of the two female foreign coaches, Elena Timina (Netherlands) who is the current coach of Dutch women's team.

The second round began in a reverse order- Challengers got A Muralidhara Rao, Smashers went for N Ravichandran, Yoddhas grabbed foreign coach Vesna Ojstersek (Slovenia) who has coached the Slovenian women's national team and runs her own company Point 21.

ASK Spinners selected Francisco Santos who has been the coach of Portugal s men's team as their foreign pick.

Maharashtra United picked Arup Basak before the draft came to end with RP-SG group picking Sachin Shetty in their team.

The inaugural season of UTT, owned and developed by 11Even Sports Pvt Ltd (ESPL), is to be played from July 13 to 30 in three cities - Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

The first two legs will be held in Chennai and Delhi before UTT shifts base to Mumbai for the finale.

Each franchise will be a combination of overseas and Indian players - four men and an equal number of women.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)