UTT 2025: Absence of review system in spotlight once again as Patriots, U Mumba post wins

The absence of the review system became a major talking point at the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) league on Sunday as season six continued to move towards its business end.

Jaipur Patriots crushed home side Ahmedabad SG Pipers 11-4 in front of around 200 spectators at the EKA Arena in Ahmedabad.

With the Patriots leading 7-2 after the first three matches, the Pipers needed clean sweeps from Ricardo Walther and Ayhika Mukherjee to pull off an unlikely win.

Trailing Walther 8-10 in the opener, Jeet Chandra wrongfooted the German with an ace down the line. However, the Pipers player claimed it should have been a let. Earlier, Jeet had caught a serve from Walther with his hand, asking for a let which was allowed. Walther expected the Indian to return the favour but Jeet, confident about the legality of his serve, didn’t budge.

While umpire Deepak Sarvaiya asked Walther to resume playing, he continued to argue which forced even referee Vipin Mehra to come out and have a discussion.

Not only did Walther eventually receive a yellow card for time wasting, but he also lost the momentum as Jeet managed to steal the game. The Indian came with the same ace at 9-9 in the decider in what he later deemed as “one of the top five victories of his career.”

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Pipers’ decision to rest Snehit Suravajjula and give Divyansh Srivastava a chance in order to surprise the Patriots almost paid dividends as the youngster was up 10-9 against the opposition skipper Kanak Jha. But a service error from the Indian led to a momentum shift from which he could never recover.

Sreeja Akula continued her unbeaten streak with a come-from-behind win against Ayhika Mukherjee, who had Sreeja’s personal coach Somnath Ghosh guiding her from the Pipers’ bench.

Later in the day, Chennai Lions’ winless streak continued with a 6-9 loss to U Mumba in a tie which had its share of controversies.

Leading 8-7 in the third game of the mixed doubles match, Fan Siqi’s return to an Akash Pal serve clipped the net after which, the ball hit the camera attached to the net and dropped on the Mumbai pair’s side of the table.

The officials had to inform Pal and his skipper Bernadette Szocs about the rule that the equipment was considered part of the net, as per the ITTF rules.

Bernadette Szocs, skipper of U Mumba, in action.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Then, with the tie at 6-6, Szocs led Poymantee Baisya 8-7 in the first game when a forehand smash from the latter had the Romanian in doubt about whether the ball had hit the edge or the side of the table. The point was awarded to the Lions player.

Fan, arguably the only player with some impactful performances for the Lions, had earlier gone down 1-2 to Yashaswini Ghorpade, summing up a disastrous campaign for the team in yellow.