Mumbai
Ahmedabad APL Pipers welcomed back Manika Batra ahead of the Butterfly Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) Season 7 auction on Tuesday, marking a significant boost after the Indian star missed the previous season through injury.
Commenting on the auction, Butterfly UTT Co-Promoter Mrs. Vita Dani said: “The auction once again reflected the depth and quality that Butterfly UTT has built over the years. It was encouraging to see teams invest in both proven international names and emerging Indian players.”
The Pipers built the team around the Indian great, adding Sofia Polcanova and Adrien Rassenfosse as their international picks, alongside Payas Jain, Sanil Shetty, and Kavya Bhatt.
Team owner Rohan Gupta said, “Our squad was built around Manika, the moment we decided to retain her. The inputs of our coaches, along with Manika, proved invaluable towards building the squad.”
With Manika back at the centre and a balanced supporting cast, Ahmedabad head into Season 7 with renewed momentum. The league will be broadcast on the Star Sports Network and streamed on JioHotstar.
Butterfly UTT Season 7 will feature seven teams competing in a single round-robin format, where each team will face every other team once in the league phase. The top four teams will progress to the knockout stage.
Butterfly UTT Season 7 – Top Buys
1. Bernadette Szocs (Romania) to Dempo Goa Challengers: 40 L tokens
2. Diya Chitale (India) to PBG Pune Jaguars: 37.4 L tokens
3. Manush Shah (India) to U Mumba TT: 37.2 L tokens
4. Manav Thakkar (India) to UP Prometheans: 36 L tokens
5. Yangzi Liu (Australia) to UP Prometheans: 32 L tokens
Butterfly UTT Season 7 – Full Squads
Ahmedabad APL Pipers: Manika Batra, Adrien Rassenfosse (Belgium), Kavya Bhatt, Sanil Shetty, Sofia Polcanova (Austria), Payas Jain
Dabang Delhi TTC: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Divyanshi Bhowmick, Maria Xiao (Spain), Youssef Abdelaziz (Egypt), Raegan Albuquerque, Sutirtha Mukherjee
Dempo Goa Challengers: Bernadette Szocs (Romania), Syndrela Das, Alvaro Robles (Spain), Divyansh Srivastava, Ananya Chande, Abhinandh PB
Kolkata Thunder Blades: Ankur Bhattacharjee, Ayhika Mukherjee, Eduard Ionescu (Romania), Taneesha Kotecha, Zeng Jian (Singapore), Jeet Chandra
PBG Pune Jaguars: Diya Chitale, Prithika Pavade (France), Snehit SFR, Mudit Dani, Omar Assar (Egypt), Sayanika Maji
U Mumba TT: Manush Shah, Akash Pal, Lilian Bardet (France), Anna Hursey (Wales), Nityashree Mani, Anusha Kutumbale
UP Prometheans: Manav Thakkar, Yangzi Liu (Australia), Ricardo Walther (Germany), Sayali Wani, Sudhanshu Grover, Swastika Ghosh
