Maria tops the individual averages at WBL

A very good weekend for the Ormesby team comprising of Karina Le Fevre, Chloe Whyte, Karen Sheperd and Maria.

The team performed very well as shown with the inividual averages with three of the players topping the ranks

Individual Averages

Chloe Whyte	played	8 won	7	87.50 %
Maria Tsaptsinos	played	8 won	7	87.50 %
Karina Le Fevre	played	10 won	8	80.00 %
Karen Shepherd	played	4 won	2	50.00 %

Team Results:

Burton Uxbridge		29/09/2013	won 5-1
Draycott East Midlands I		29/09/2013	drew 3 - 3
Byng Hall A		28/09/2013	won 6 - 0
Topspin Sports		28/09/2013	won 6-0
Halton TTC I		28/09/2013	won 4 - 2

Maria's individual results 

Megan Knowles	Topspin Sports	28/09/2013	11-9 4-11 6-11 2-11
Emma Rose	Topspin Sports	28/09/2013	4-11 8-11 6-11
Gillian Edwards	Halton TTC I	28/09/2013	11-9 11-9 8-11 11-9
Janay Elizabeth Gibson	Halton TTC I	28/09/2013	11-5 11-8 11-6
Sophie Neil	Burton Uxbridge	29/09/2013	4-11 9-11 8-11
Kate Hughes	Burton Uxbridge	29/09/2013	9-11 7-11 9-11
Caroline Hallows	Draycott East Midlands I	29/09/2013	11-6 11-7 11-8
Emma Vickers	Draycott East Midlands I	29/09/2013	14-12 6-11 10-12 7-11

Current League Table 

Ormesby 9 points
Draycott East Midlands I 7
Burton Uxbridge 6
Halton TTC I 3
Topspin Sports 3
Byng Hall A 2

Further information and for more details link to the official WBL site.

Chandlers junior 4 star tournament

Spent the Sunday at Grantham Meres leisure centre participating at the four star tournament. The day started by playing Kate Cheer, Amy Humprhies and Emily Godfrey at the group stage. Maria won all three games 3-0 to finish top of the group. The results in detail were 7, 5, 5 (Kate), 2, 9, 6 (Amy) and 6, 7, 5 (Emily).

Then at the next round met the young and promising Zahna Hall and won in straight sets again (2, 6, 9) to set up a quarter final game against Ela Patel and beat her 3-0 (4 7 3). 

At the semi final once again Emma Torkington was on our path and after an exciting game and despite losing the first set 8-11 and being 3-7 down for the second Maria won the next three sets 12-10 11-6 and 11-9.

For the final Lois Peake started strong and won the first set 10-12 but once again Maria's energy and determination saw her winning the title with 11-3 11-8 and 11-7 for another good end of yet another weekend of table tennis.

Local MP visits Kingfisher

Initial Tweet

Local MP visits Kingfisher

Rob Wilson, Reading East MP visited Kingfisher club tonight to congratulate Maria in person after his message on twitter.

Sainsbury's UK School Games Gallery

License All rights reserved by English Table Tennis Association 

 

 

The Path that led to Gold

The Sainsbury's School games took place at Ponds Forge, Sheffield, South Yorkshire over three days (13-15 Sep) and Maria represented England South West for the team event and for the individual singles.

picture courtesy of Trevor Parsons

For the singles on Saturday afternoon she played two games at the group stage

Maria Tsaptsinos v Lucy Elliott w/o to Maria Tsaptsinos
Maria Tsaptsinos v Amy Humphreys 11-5,11-6,11-9 

followed early Sunday morning with the final game

Maria Tsaptsinos v Amy Hutchings 11-8,11-9,11-6 

to finish first in her group and qualify for the round of 16s.

Then she was to meet  Letitia McMullen. Letitia won the first set 8-11 but soon Maria found her range and won the three next sets 11-8 11-7 11-8.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
For the Quarter Finals Maria was to face another tough opponent, Emma Torkington but Maria continued and improved her form and won 3-0 (11-4 11-9 11-2). Next for the semi final she played against her England colleague Lois Peake with Maria taking the first set 11-9 but Lois came back to win 7-11 to make it one set all. Then despite that Lois was performing very well Maria seemed to have all the answers and she won the two next sets 11-8 and 11-6. At the same time the other semi final provided a surprise since Yuki Wat beat number one seed Tin Tin Ho 3-0.

Maria on the final started extremely well and as the ETTA website describes it " the girl from the South West took upon her task with her usual exuberant gusto to storm the first game of the final 11-5". Then Maria took a 2-0 lead (11-8) and whereas the final seemed to go her way Yuki came back to win the third set 3-11. The fourth set continued with Yuki to have the upper hand and the opportunity to make it 2 all since she found herself 7-10 up. That was the moment that Maria's never die spirit plus the tremendous support from the South West supporters helped raise her game to make it 10-10. Then Maria had two set points and Yuki had one at 13-13 but Maria took the next two points to be crowned the gold medalist of the girls individual event. 

A good start to the new season

Over the weekend the Guildford Grand Prix took place with a record number of participants. Maria took part at the following three competitions:

Women's Band 1

Women's Band 2

Women's 

She was the winner of band 2, a finalist for band 1 and a semi-finalist for women's.

One the first day, and after spending 12 hours at the hall, Maria won her band 2 group with three 3-0 wins against Zoe Cheesman (11-8 11-8 11-5), Sabina Devereux (11-4 11-8 12-10) and Kelsey Le_Maistre (11-3 12-1011-6). Then for the quarter final she met Sue Collier, the number one veteran, and won 3-1 (11-9 11-8 7-1111-2) and for the semifinal Teresa Bennett  whom she beat with the same score (11-7 13-15 11-9 11-9). For the final she met the Welsh player and a good friend Nicole Hall. Nicole took the first set 9-11 but Maria followed with three set wins (11-7 11-8 11-8)

For band 1 Maria was drawn in the first group with the French girl Sarah Berge, Cherith Graham and Kelsey Le_Maistre. Maria qualified for the quarter finals after recording two wins against Kelsey (11-9 11-4 11-7) and Cherith (9-11 11-8 11-3 11-7 after losing to Sarah (2-11 6-11 10-12). At the quarter final Maria faced one of the Welsh twins Megan Phillips that she beat 3-2 (9-11 11-8 12-10 9-11 11-3) and for the next round the high ranked Yolanda King and for the first time ever she beat 3-0 (11-2 11-7 11-4). In the final Sarah proved strong once again despite that Maria took the first set 11-7 and won three consecutive sets by 5-11 5-11 7-11. 

And then it was time to drive home!

On Sunday Maria beat the following players during the group:

Juliet Mussata 11-4 11-2 11-3

Megan Phillips 7-11 11-6 12-10 11-8

Jas Ould 11-7 10-12 11-6 11-5

Naomi Jackson 11-8 11-8 11-13 11-7

Kelly Skeggs 11-9 11-3 11-7

For the quarter final Maria faced another higher ranked player Chloe Thomas and despite losing the first two sets 8-11 8-11 she came back strongly to win 11-7 13-11 11-5 to set up a semifinal game against England's number three Hannah Hicks. The experience and consistency of Hannah saw her through to the final after winning 6-11 11-13 4-11.

Overall Maria played 20 games and she won 17 of them. The interesting part is that all her three defeats came in the hands of defenders. So more practice against choppers is required!