Having endured two close finishes Maharashtra United will be aiming to break into a winning jig when they take on Empowerji Challengers in their CEAT Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) Powered by Kellogg’s duel at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex here on Thursday.

Both teams are winless but Maharashtra hold the edge having collected more points (20) than Challengers (15) during the Pune leg. They also have a better win-loss games' record from the two ties (five wins, nine losses) than the last year’s finalists (four wins, 10 losses).

Interestingly, Maharashtra were involved in the most exciting battle of the season against RP-SG Mavericks, with a golden point in the last game of the tie deciding the winner. Both their ties had a similar score (10-11) with their rivals Falcons TTC and Mavericks scraping through by one point each. On the other hand, Challengers went down to Mavericks 8-14 and 7-14 to Warriors.

Barring Anthony Amalraj (Maharashtra) and the promising Manav Thakkar (Challengers), Indians from either side have not tested higher ranked players resulting in the foreign hands having a bigger say in the proceedings. In this context, the Maharashtra quartet of captain Joao Monteiro, Swede Kristian Karlsson, Romanian Elizabeta Samara and Lily Zhang of USA have fared better, unlike the Challengers who are struggling with the poor form of captain Simon Gauzy and Georgina Pota.

World No. 12 Gauzy, the highest ranked player this season, lost both his singles (1-2 to Mavericks Mattias Carlsson and 0-3 to Warriors’ Chih-Huan Chuang) while Hungarian Georgina lost by an identical margin (1-2) to Doo Hoi Kem (Mavericks) and Sofia Polcanova (Warriors). So it’s obvious that if Challengers have to do well, both Gauzy and Georgina need to fire.

With a tenacious Maharashtra not willing to concede an inch and Challengers desperate to rise from the cellar, the second day of the Delhi leg promises an exciting fare.

Date: June 21, 2018 (Thursday)

Venue: Thyagaraj Sports Complex, Delhi

Head to head: Matches played 1, Maharashtra 0, Challengers 1

Points in Season 2: Maharashtra 20, Challengers 15

Players to watch out

Men: Kristian Karlsson, World No. 18, Simon Gauzy, World No. 12, Manav Thakkar, U18 World No. 2.

Women: Elizabeta Samara, World No. 19, Lee Ho Ching, (World No. 20).

Maharashtra United: Men: Kristian Karlsson (Sweden), Anthony Amalraj, Joao Monteiro (Portugal) World No 71, Utkarsh Gupta. Women: Elizabeta Samara (Romania), Madhurika Patkar, Lily Zhang (USA) World No. 56, Selena Selvakumar. Coaches: N. Ravichandran, Francisco Santos (Portugal).

Empowerji Challengers: Men: Simon Gauzy (France), Manav Thakkar, Tiago Apolonia (Portugal) World No. 40, Arjun Ghosh. Women: Lee Ho Ching (Hong Kong), Georgina Pota (Hungary) World No. 37, Divya Deshpande, Prapti Sen. Coaches: Muralidhara Rao and Peter Engel.