Title holders Goa Challengers, Dabang Delhi emerge winners in opening day of UTT

Ahmedabad, May 31 (PTI) Eyeing a hattrick of crowns, Goa Challegers started their title defence in style, beating hosts Ahmedabad SG Pipers 10-5 in the second tie of the Ultimate Table Tennis Season 6 here on Saturday.

Tiago Apolonia of Portugal started Goa Challengers campaign in the right earnest, beating Snehit Suravajjula 2-1 (11-6 11-6 10-11) in the first men's singles match.

Krittwika Sinha Roy then extended Goa Challengers' lead defeating Ayhika Mukherjee 2-1 (4-11 11-8 11-9) in women's singles.

But Goa Challengers suffered defeat in mixed doubles after the pair of Harmeet Desai and Zeng Jian of Singapore lost 1-2 (9-11 10-11 11-10) against Ricardo Walther of Germany and Mukherjee.

Desai, however, took his revenge by prevailing 2-1 (6-11 11-10 11-13) over Walther in the reverse men's singles match.

In the final match of the tie, Jian hardly broke her sweat to tame Giorgia Piccolin of Italy 3-0 (11-7 11-7 11-5) in the second women's singles match.

Earlier in the day, Indian paddlers Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Diya Chitale produced outstanding performances to power former champions Dabang Delhi TTC to a dominant 11-4 win over Jaipur Patriots in the UTT Season 6 opener.

Quek Izaac of Singapore came from a game down to beat American Kanak Jha 2-1 (5-11 11-5 11-9) in the first men's singles match to hand 2018 champions Dabang Delhi the lead.

India international Sreeja Akula brought Jaipur Patriots back with a 2-1 (4-11 11-9 11-10) win over Maria Xiao of Spain in women's singles.

Olympian Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, playing for Dabang Delhi for sixth successive season, then joined forces with Xiao for Dabang Delhi and defeated the pair of Jha and Akula 3-0 (11-6 11-10 11-6) in the mixed doubles match.

Gnanasekaran was on fire then, scoring an easy 3-0 (11-6 11-7 11-6) win over Jeet Chandra in the reverse men's singles.

Chitale, the highest valued Indian player at this year's auction, too looked in good touch and was quick with both her forehand and backhand shots. She used top spin serves and powerful forehand smashed to prevail over higher-ranked world No.43 Britt Eerland of Netherlands to hand Dabang Delhi an easy win and confident start.

In the league stage of UTT league, a game is won when a player scores first 11 points, with a golden point used deciding games that are tied at 10-10.

A team wins a tie by winning the most games. In the league stage, a team wins a tie by winning at least eight out of the 15 total games. PTI SSC SSC ATK