President of India Ramnath Kovind confers Manika Batra and G Sathiyan with Arjuna awards

Manika Batra and G Sathiyan received their Arjuna awards from the President of India in a glittering ceremony at the Rashtrapati bhavan.

Table tennis clubs and Table tennis academies in Bengaluru

The following are some Table tennis clubs and academies in Bangalore:

Match Point Table tennis academy
SKIES Table Tennis academy
The Malleshwaram association
Gopalan Sports center
Canara Union
BNM Table Tennis
Horizon Table tennis academy
Tenvic

Write to editor@tabletennisbug.com or text 9822091862 for more information.

Many Indian group matches at the Australian Open Table tennis tournament today

Harmeet Desai will start his match at 6 PM (Geelong time) at the Seamaster 2018 ITTF World Tour Platinum Australian Open at Geelong. Sathiyan and Sharath will play their matches next followed by Manav a little later in the day. Sanil and Amalraj have already played their first matches yesterday. Sharath and Sathiyan have relatively easy opposition while Manav faces the formidable Maharu Yoshimura.

In the Women's singles, India's star player Manika Batra plays her match tomorrow. In a bizzare pairing, Sutirtha Mukherjee will face off against Ayhika Mukherjee in a group match. Bizzare because they've traveled thousands of kilometers to play at the Australian open from their home where they live just some kilometers apart! Pooja Sahasrabuddhe Koparkar won her tough group match earlier.

Photo courtesy of the ITTF. Only for representational purposes.

Table tennis training centers and clubs in Mumbai

There are several training centers and Table tennis clubs in and around Mumbai. The city and it's suburbs has seen the rise of many national and international players. Some of the famous players who are active currently in Mumbai and Thane are Sanil Shetty, Ravindra Kotiyan, Madhurika Patkar Torgalkar, Divya Deshpande, Siddhesh Pande, Sanish Ambekar, and others.

Please write to editor@tabletennisbug.com for more details or text 7020525032 so that we can guide you further

The following are some of the clubs and training centers in Mumbai:

*Matunga Gymkhana
*NSCI, Worli
*Guru Table tennis center
*RCF Table tennis court, Chembur
*JLTTA Vile Parle
*Supreme Table tennis academy, Malad
*Achiever's Table tennis academy, Andheri
*P3 Sports Academy in Powai

Manika Batra profile

Manika is a star sports person who is fast becoming a household name. For those who are not already aware, so who is this new Star on the horizon of Indian sports, Manika Batra?

Manika Batra is a Table tennis player from Delhi who has catapulted herself and her sport into the limelight. She won the most medals as an individual from India at the Commonwealth games at Gold coast in 2018.

Manika is attracting increasing attention in India as Prime Minister has shown his appreciation for her international achievements. He tweeted about her medals at the Commonwealth games and recently sent her a fitness challenge, which was also sent to H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka Chief Minister) and IPS officers.

Manika will be in action at the Ultimate Table Tennis Challenge league, which starts at Pune from 14th of June, 2018. This is the second season of the league.

Major achievements

Asian Games
Bronze medal - 2018 Asian Games at Jakarta Palembang Mixed doubles (with Sharath Kamal)

Commonwealth Games
Gold medal – 2018 Gold Coast Women's team
Gold medal – 2018 Gold Coast Women's singles
Silver medal – 2018 Gold Coast Women's doubles
Bronze medal – 2018 Gold Coast Mixed doubles

South Asian Games
Gold medal – 2016 Guwahati/Shillong Women's team
Gold medal – 2016 Guwahati/Shillong Women's doubles
Gold medal – 2016 Guwahati/Shillong Mixed doubles
Silver medal – 2016 Guwahati/Shillong Women's singles

National Championships
Gold medal - Hyderabad (January 2017) Women'singles
Gold medal - Guwahati 2013 Youth Girls singles
Gold medal - Alappuzha 2014 Youth Girls singles
Gold medal - Dharamshala 2015 Youth Girls singles

India win a historic Gold medal at the Commonwealth games 2018

Manika Batra beat World No. 4 Feng Tianwei of Singapore! 

India is 1-0 up in the Gold medal round of the 2018 Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast.

Madhurika Patkar Torgalkar is playing against Yu Mengyu in the 2nd match. 

Update: Although Madhurika lost, the doubles pair won and allowed Manika to demonstrate her dominance in the reverse singles.

India won 3-1 and with it the shining gold medal.

Coaches for Ultimate Table Tennis league 2018

Earlier, last month, the coaches draft was conducted for the Ultimate Table Tennis league. 

The following coaches will lead the players for season 2018, which is scheduled to be held in June.

The coaches line-up: 
Falcons TTC: Soumyadeep Roy & Vesna Ojstersek (Slovenia) 
Yoddhas: Sandeep Gupta & Ferenc Karsai (Hungary) 
RP-SG Mavericks: Arup Basak & Elena Timina (Netherlands) 
Challengers: A Muralidhara Rao & Peter Engel (Germany) 
Dabang Smashers TTC: Sachin Shetty & Andrei Filimon (Romania) 
DHFL Maharashtra United: N Ravichandran & Francisco Santos (Portugal).

UTT (Ultimate Table Tennis) player draft

The player draft of the UTT took place today.

The following players were picked for the various UTT franchises:

Falcons TTC: Sanil Shetty (pre-selected) Bernadette Szocs, Matilda Ekholm, Liam Pitchford, Alvaro Robles, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ronit Bhanja, Priyadarshini Das

Dabang Smashers T.T.C.: G Sathiyan (pre-selected) Sakura Mori, Masaki Yoshida, Manika Batra, Adriana Diaz, Archana Kamath, Sanish Ambekar, Cedric Nuytinck

RP-SG Mavericks: Doo Hoi Kem, Mattias Karlsson, Harmeet Desai, Kou Lei, Ayhika Mukherjee, Mouma Das, Siddhesh Pande, Sabine Winter

DHFL Maharashtra United: Kristian Karlsson, Elizabeta Samara, Anthony Amalraj, Madhurika Patkar, Joao Monteiro, Lily Zhang, Selena Selvakumar, Utkarsh Gupta

Oilmax-Stag Yoddhas: Chih Yuan Chuang, Sofia Polcanova, Sharath Kamal, Aruna Quadri, Hana Matelova, Pooja Sahasrabudhe, Sreeja Akula, Ravindra Kotiyan

Shaze Challengers: Lee Ho Ching, Georgina Pota, Simon Gauzy, Manav Thakar, Tiago Apolonia, Divya Deshpande, Arjun Ghosh, Prapti Sen