Table tennis player and bronze medal winner in the doubles event at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, Ayhika Mukherjee has decided to skip the franchise-based Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) to be held in Ahmedabad from May 29 to June 15.

Ayhika, 27, will instead participate in two feeder and one contender tournaments organised by the World Table Tennis.

Ayhika seeks to enhance her world ranking. She is currently ranked 71 and wants to break into the top 50. Her first stop is Manchester, where she will be seen in action in the WTT Feeder Manchester starting on Thursday. She left for the UK on Tuesday.

The WTT Feeder Prishtina 2025 in Kosovo will be from June 3 to 7, followed by WTT Contender Skopje 2025 in North Macedonia from June 9 to 15. In between, she will be in Doha for the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals from May 17 to May 25. She and Sutirtha Mukherjee will be playing in the women’s doubles event.

The Asian Games bronze medal winners in doubles will also be featuring in the Prishtina and Skopje events. The Mukherjees practise at the Dhanuka Dhunseri Soumyadeep Poulomi Table Tennis Academy,

Ayhika’s preference for WTT events over UTT, which could have given her some financial boost, was in contrast to most sportspersons, who, despite a tight schedule, do not think twice before participating in franchise-based leagues worldwide.

“Top-50 is her target. She is working hard for that,” Ayhika’s father Gautam Mukherjee said on Wednesday.

In the build-up to the Paris Olympic Games, Ayhika missed key tournaments in Europe due to a visa problem. That had cost her a berth in the squad. She was in Paris as a standby.

With the women’s doubles events included in the table tennis programme at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, Ayhika and Sutirtha will go all-out for a berth. “That’s for sure,” Gautam said.