Mumbai, Sep 10 (IANS): For the first time Mumbai will host the Asian Junior Table Tennis Championship at the NSCI Sardar Vallabhai Patel Indoor Stadium here Sep 12-16.
The championship will be organised by Mumbai City District Table Tennis Association (MCDTTA) under the aegis of the Asian Table Tennis Union (ATTU) and Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI).
“This is one of the most significant moments in the history of table tennis in India and Mumbai. With the world’s best juniors competing, it is a golden opportunity for upcoming Indian players to receive the necessary exposure," said organising committee chairperson Vita Dani.
The competition will feature about 200 players including a galaxy of top ranked players from Asia and around 30 top Indians. The participating nations include China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Qatar and hosts India.
The top-5 teams will qualify for the World Junior Championships to be held in Shanghai from Nov 30 to Dec 7.
The categories include boys and girls singles, doubles, mixed doubles and team championships, cadet boys and girls singles and team championships.
China are the defending boys and girls champions while South Korea are boys runners-up and Japan are girls runners-up. China also are the defending cadet boys’ and girls’ champions while Chinese Taipei are cadet boys runners-up and Japan the cadet girls runners-up.
Indian squad:
Boys: Abhishek Yadav, Lalrinpuia, Utkarsh Gupta, Sabhya Virmani, Boro Birdie, Anirban Ghosh, Nishaad Shah.
Girls: Sagarika Mukherjee, Ayhika Mukherjee, Deb Oishwarya Deb, Priyadarshini Das, Sreeja Akula, Riti Shankar.
Cadet boys: Vikash Thakkar, Akash Nath, Rafeeque Fidel, Snehit Suravajjula, Jeet Chandra.
Cadet girls: Naina, Shruti Amrute, Archana Kamath, Abhinaya Ramesh, Aishwarya Pathak.
Coaches: Arup Basak, Surendar Deshpande, Sandeep Gupta, Arulselvi Narayanan, Deepak Mani.
Manager: Rohitesh Haldar.