Led by top international stars Aruna Quadri of Nigeria and Lily Zhang of the United States, U Mumba TT is ready for the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) Season 4, which will witness six teams competing for the title in July 2023.
Aruna and Lily are the highest-ranked players in the league and will spearhead the team's challenge.
U Mumba TT's first foray into UTT came in Season 3 and after narrowly missing out on the Grand Finale in their debut season, the team is gearing up with a new set of global and Indian stars to take to the tables at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, Pune.
The team of six players comprises a mix of youth and experience and an added motivation with recent news of two Indian stars Diya Chitale and Manav Thakkar, who was retained by the squad, being selected as part of the Indian team for the upcoming Asian Games in September-October.
Besides Quadri and Zhang, the squad include the experienced Mouma Das (Kolkata) and Sudhanshu Grover (Delhi) as U Mumba TT look to carry on the form of sister Franchise upGrad Mumba Masters, who went on to finish runners-up in the inaugural Global Chess League last month.
This talent carries the confidence to win the hearts of fans and win the championship this year and will be led by Indian coach Anshul Garg and international coach Francisco Santos from Portugal.
The other talent in the squad includes Manav Thakkar, former World No.1 in U-18 and U-21 ITTF rankings; Diya Chitale, doubles National Champion who won Gold in the National Ranking Tournament 2022; Sudhanshu Grover, the seven-time National Champion in doubles.
U Mumba TT will be playing their first tie against Bengaluru Smashers on July 14. The team will be playing a total of five ties in UTT through the league phase.
U Mumba TT is owned by Unilazer Ventures Pvt. Ltd. -– a company founded by Ronnie Screwvala who is a philanthropist and movie producer. Suhail Chandhok, a sports broadcaster and entrepreneur recently joined the team as their CEO.
They own the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) franchise U Mumba, which featured in three consecutive finals and won the Season 2 title. Recently in Dubai, U Mumba was a part of the inaugural Global Chess League where the upGrad Mumba Masters finished Runners-Up in a thrilling final.
