UTT 2024: Lily Zhang stars as Bengaluru Smashers continue unbeaten run

A basic understanding of electrostatics would tell you that when two live wires come into contact, the circuit rapidly heats up to cause overloading.

If physics isn’t your forte, the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) taught fans a lesson in secondary-school-level science at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Thursday as PBG Bengaluru Smashers climbed to the top of the table with an emphatic 11-4 win over Jaipur Patriots.

Nithyashree Mani has quickly earned the label of ‘giant-killer’, strangling higher-placed opponents in Sutirtha Mukherjee and Yashaswini Ghorpade earlier in the league. It seems like only yesterday when an unheralded Nithyashree was announced as a replacement for Sreeja Akula in the Jaipur Patriots side. Since then, she has only gone from strength to strength.

However, on matchday seven, she was expected to face another live wire in the USA’s World No. 28 Lily Zhang, also on an unbeaten run. The five-time US champion is a mentality monster, known for her all-round attacking approach that keeps the best in the business in check.

But it was always going to be an uphill climb for the local lady, ranked 186 places below Zhang. Although Nithyashree uses anti-type rubber on the backhand to complement her deceptive spin, in the first game, it was Lily’s forehand drives, which clocked 70kph-plus, that did all the talking.

With the scoreline reading 11-5 in favour of the four-time Olympian, one would have thought the 21-year-old, who is trying to make a name for herself in the league, would go on to succumb to a huge loss.

Moments later, Nithyashree started to prove why India coach Massimo Costantini rates her so highly. She was staring down the barrel but wasn’t ready to go down without a fight.

Understanding that her strength lies in converting the short exchanges into longer rallies to try and draw out an error from Zhang, who was relying heavily on her sidespin, she switched to a defensive stance in the middle of the table, merely trying to keep the ball on the table.

The ploy had started to pay off with Nithyashree pouncing on to make use of every open opportunity and swatting Zhang out with rare forehand smashes. The game eventually came down to the golden point, 15th of the league, that saw Zhang claim the matchpoint and have the narrowest of escapes.

Earlier, another undefeated pair—Cho Seungmin and Alvaro Robles— locked horns in the first men’s singles of the day.

Serving from the right, Alvaro was always expected to make use of the inverted rubber on his backhand to outwit Cho. Alvaro, in fact, until the start of Thursday’s contest, had the highest backhand win-rate at 52 per cent. A tug-of-war ensued with the aggressive gameplay of both the paddlers coming to the fore.

With the score at 7-6 in the first game in favour of Robles, the Smashers earned another point when the Spanish matador unleashed a wristy flick on the parallel, while serving on the wide forehand. That had to be the highlight of the day.

Cho’s erratic shot selections came back to bite him even though he was reaping the benefits of extreme pace and an unorthodox pendulum service, where he held the blade close to his face before swooping down to effect a forehand sidespin. The South Korean eventually went down 2-1.

Jeet Chandra and Manika Batra, the last two singles players to emerge from the Bengaluru dugout, kept a clean sheet as the Patriots skipper Snehit SFR and Suthasini Sawettabut sunk to an embarrassing 3-0 faux pas.