Chennai Lions splurged 19.7 lakh tokens on China's Fan Siqi while Dabang Delhi TTC roped in India's Diya Chitale for 14.1 lakh tokens, making them the highest valued players in the auction for Ultimate Table Tennis' sixth season on Tuesday. (More Sports News)
Dabang Delhi TTC used their right to match (RTM) card after an intense bidding war to bring Chitale on their roster, while also retaining G Sathiyan with a bid of 10 lakh tokens.
Sathiyan remains the only player to have represented the same franchise all six seasons.
Harmeet Desai rejoined the reigning champions Goa Challengers through RTM with 14 lakh tokens, which was twice of his base price. Sreeja Akula returned to Jaipur Patriots for 11 lakh tokens (RTM), while Ahmedabad SG Pipers bid 12 lakh tokens for Manika Batra.
Ankur Bhattacharjee and Payas Jain were picked up by Kolkata ThunderBlades and Chennai Lions for 11.4 and 11.6 lakh tokens respectively.
Goa Challengers also added Olympians Tiago Apolonia, Zeng Jian, Ronit Bhanja and Sayali Wani to their side while Delhi roped in Suhana Saini, Olympians Quek Izaac and Maria Xiao.
Kolkata ThunderBlades added Adriana Diaz for 19.3 lakh tokens and paired her with the experienced Nigerian paddler Quadri Aruna, picked at his base price of 11 lakh tokens.
PBG Pune Jaguars secured Spanish ace Alvaro Robles for 18.1 lakh tokens while also used the RTM card for Taneesha Kotecha.
U Mumba TT invested in domestic talent as they picked up Yashaswini Ghorpade, PB Abhinandh, Bernadette Szocs and Lilian Bardet.
Along side Manika, Ahmedabad SG Pipers also roped in WTT Star Contender Chennai quarter-finalist Snehit Suravajjula, Ricardo Walther and Giorgia Piccolin.
Jaipur Patriots used their RTM card to retain WTT Contender Lagos 2024 winner Sreeja, while also signing USA's Kanak Jha and the Netherlands' Britt Eerland as their foreign players.
All eight teams will play five league stage matches each with top four ranked sides making it to the semifinals.
Squads:
Ahmedabad SG Pipers: Manika Batra, Ricardo Walther, Snehit Suravajjula, Giorgia Piccolin, Divyansh Srivastava, Yashini Sivashankar
Chennai Lions: Fan Siqi, Kirill Gerassimenko, Payas Jain, Sudhanshu Grover, Jennifer Varghese, Nikhat Banu
Dabang Delhi TTC: Diya Chitale, Maria Xiao, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Quek Izaac, Suhana Saini, Sourav Saha
Goa Challengers TTC: Zeng Jian, Harmeet Desai, Tiago Apolonia, Ronit Bhanja, Krittwika Sinha Roy, Sayali Wani
Jaipur Patriots: Britt Eerland, Kanak Jha, Sreeja Akula, Jeet Chandra, Pritha Vartikar, Yashansh Malik
Kolkata ThunderBlades: Adriana Diaz, Aruna Quadri, Ankur Bhattacharjee, Selena Selvakumar, Ananya Chande, Deepit Patil
U Mumba TT: Bernadette Szocs, Lilian Bardet, Yashaswini Ghorpade, Swastika Ghosh, Akash Pal, Abhinandh PB
PBG Pune Jaguars: Alvaro Robles, Dina Meshref, Taneesha Kotecha, Anirban Ghosh, Reeth Rishya, Mudit Dani.
