WTT Star Contender Chennai 2025: Manush Shah, Diya Chitale handed wildcards

India will field a record 19 players for WTT Star Contender Chennai 2025 in the main draw after more Indian table tennis players, including national champions Manush Shah and Diya Chitale, were handed wildcards on Thursday.

This will be the first time 19 Indian table tennis players will compete in a WTT Star Contender event.

In doubles, table tennis great Sharath Kamal and his partner Snehit Suravajjula secured a men’s doubles wildcard for the tournament scheduled to be played from March 25 to 31 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium.

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai received the second wildcard in the men’s doubles.

Sathiyan has also secured a mixed doubles wildcard alongside Sreeja Akula. The team of Manika Batra and Manav Thakkar have also been handed a mixed doubles wildcard.

All four women’s singles host-nominated wildcards went to Indian players, with the experienced Sutirtha Mukherjee and Krittwika Sinha Roy joining Swastika Ghosh and national champion Diya Chitale.

In the men’s singles, Snehit joins Manush as the second Indian wildcard entry. Among the foreign wildcard recipients, the Republic of Korea’s Park Ganghyeon, an Asian Games 2023 men’s team silver medallist and Malta’s Kim Taehyun have secured entries to the main draw.

Wildcards were allocated to ensure broader representation and provide emerging talents with key opportunities.

World Table Tennis (WTT) nominated Suhana Saini and Taneesha Kotecha. Meanwhile, India’s Ankur Bhattacharjee and South Korea’s Yoo Yerin earned WTT Youth Nominations.

For the women’s doubles wildcards, Sreeja will pair up with Swastika Ghosh, while Syndrela Das will partner Suhana.

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