Shah and Chitale receive wildcards for Chennai tournament

Manush Shah and Diya Chitale, two national table tennis champions from India, have received wildcards for the WTT Star Contender Chennai 2025. This event will take place from March 25 to 31 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium. India will have a record 19 players participating in this tournament. This marks the first time that so many Indian players will compete in a WTT Star Contender event. In men’s doubles, Sharath Kamal and his partner Snehit Suravajjula have also received a wildcard, along with Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai. Sathiyan has secured another wildcard for mixed doubles with Sreeja Akula. Additionally, Manika Batra and Manav Thakkar have been awarded a mixed doubles wildcard as well. All four wildcards for the women’s singles category went to Indian players. These include Sutirtha Mukherjee, Krittwika Sinha Roy, Swastika Ghosh, and Diya Chitale. Snehit will join Manush as the second Indian player receiving a wildcard for men’s singles. Foreign players Park Ganghyeon from South Korea and Kim Taehyun from Malta have also received wildcards. The allocation of wildcards aims to provide more opportunities for emerging talents in the sport. World Table Tennis has also nominated Suhana Saini and Taneesha Kotecha, while Ankur Bhattacharjee from India and Yoo Yerin from South Korea earned WTT Youth Nominations. For women’s doubles, Sreeja will team up with Swastika Ghosh, and Syndrela Das will partner with Suhana Saini.