Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) on Monday concluded the draft for selecting coaches for each franchise in the presence of consulting agency, Ernst & Young.
A total of twelve coaches- equal mix of Indian and foreign coaches- were part of the draft system. Each franchise had to pick one Indian and foreign coach from the draft.
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 pulled a thriller and picked the first Indian coach, Soumyadeep Roy before Oilmax Stag Yoddhas had the next bid and picked Indian coach Sandeep Gupta.
Dabang Smashers T.T.C picked Ilija Lupulesku (USA) and the final franchise, Challengers, opting for one of the two female foreign coaches, Elena Timina (Netherlands) who is the current coach of Dutch women TT team.
The second round began in a reverse order- Challengers got A. Muralidhara Rao, Dabang Smashers T.T.C went for N Ravichandran, Oilmax Stag Yoddhas going for their foreign coach pick in Vesna Ojstersek (Slovenia) who has coached the Slovenian women national team and runs her own company Point 21.
ASK Spinners picked their foreign coach, Francisco Santos who has been the coach of Portugal's men team. Maharashtra United picked Arup Basak before the Draft came to end with RP-SG group picking Sachin Shetty in their team.
RP-SG Group tried plying the Instant Trade card with Maharashtra United for their Indian coach Arup Basak but the team who also compete against each other in Indian Super League wouldn't budge and brought an end to the Coach Draft for the inaugural edition of UTT.
The inaugural season will be played from July 13 to July 30, 2017 in three different 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 comprise of a combination of overseas and Indian players- four men and four women.
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