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Chennai Lions are new UTT champions

Abha Gupta. Dated: 8/12/2019 4:32:54 PM

Chennai Lions glided away to a one-sided victory over Dabang Delhi to clinch the Ultimate Table Tennis crown on Sunday.

In front of a packed house, the Sharath Kamal-spearheaded Lions demolished defending champions Dabang Delhi 8-1 to bring the league to a premature end.

Chennai cantered to the required 8 tie points in the first three matches itself, rendering the final two inconsequential.

The Lions’ foreign imports, Germany’s Petrissa Solja and Portugal’s Tiago Apolonia proved to be the stars of the grand finale, taming Bernadatte Szocs 2-1 and Sathiyan G 3-0 to take a formidable, and clearly unbeatable, lead.

Sharath and Petrissa then put up a master class in the Mixed Doubles, collating the last 3 needed points with utmost ease to clinch the title.

“This is an amazing win,” an exultant Sharath said after the victory.

“We played near flawless table tennis and came up with the perfect plan for the final,” he added.

Rio Olympics Silver medallist Petrissa Solja gave Chennai a flying start, decimating Bernadatte in the opening women’s singles.

In the opening men’s singles, Tiago came up with an inspired performance, walloping the higher-ranked Delhi captain Sathiyan 11-6, 11-7, 11-9.

Sharath and Petrissa were in a different league in the mixed doubles, picking up points almost at will. Sharath played calmly, cutting down on unforced errors to make it easier for the pair.

Sathiyan and Bernadatte simply had no weapons left to fight back into the contest, perhaps still recovering from the thriller two days back. They lost 7-11, 2-11, 3-11 to allow Chennai to roar in delight.