Bristol Grand Prix 2015 Women's final: Video

The Table Tennis England Association has made the video of the final available today. Watch on YouTube the five setter game of Maria versus the Italian Ciara Colantoni.

Bristol Grand Prix Success

Maria was crowned the 2015 Bristol Grand Prix Women's and Under 21s Singles champion on Sunday the 15th of November. The competition took place at the University of West England Sport Centre.
Maria finished her group stage with three wins against Edyta Schmid (3-0), Amelia Chan (3-1) and the very promising Anna Hursey (3-0).
At the quarter final stage Maria defeated Emily Bolton (3-1) and progressed to the semi final where 
she met fellow Nottingham University player Emma Ludlow and with a 3-1win she reached the final. At the final she met the Grantham-based Italian Chiara Colantoni. 

The final was a constant battle, highly entertaining with Maria winning the first two sets 12-10 and 14-12. The next two sets were won by Chiara  (11-13 and 5-11). The momentum was now with the Italian girl, especially when the score was 6-10 in her favour. At 7-10 a time out was taken by Chiara and Maria determined as always believed that the game is not finished yet. The next 5 points went Maria's way for a fifth set win of 12-10. 

For the Under 21s group Maria progressed with three 3-0 wins against Kate Roberts, Amy Blagbrough and Medha Verma. Maria faced Kelsey LeMaistre for the quarter final and Gina Rieck for the semi final winning with the same score 3-0 both games. In the final she faced the second seed Emily Bolton and Maria won the second title of the day with yet another 3-0.

Etta report

Part of the TASS Family

Maria has been selected to join the family of TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme). TASS is a Government funded programme that represents a unique partnership between talented young athletes, National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGB’s) and the Higher (University) and Further (college/school) Education sector. TASS aims to help its athletes to balance academic life with training and competition as a performance athlete.

Maria would like to thank TASS for all the provided support which it will help her during her University days at Nottingham University starting this September.

Commonwealth Table Tennis Senior Call

Maria has been included in the squad to represent England at the Table Tennis Commonwealth games taking place in India this December. Karina LeFevre, Tin Tin Ho and Lois Peake will join Maria trying to achieve medal positions.

The official Table Tennis England report can be read here

First Senior Cap Calling

Maria has been selected to represent England for the Women's team for the European Championships taking place in Russia from the 25th of September to the 4th of October together with Kelly Sibley, Karina Le Fevre and Tin Tin Ho. This is the first opportunity for Maria to earn her first senior cap.

The official announcement as appeared at the website of Table Tennis England can be read here.

Highs and Lows of the European Youth tournament

Maria spent more than 10 days at Bratislava with fellow England squad members Tin Tin Ho and Lois Peake representing the country as Junior Girls for the 58th European Youth Championships.
In the team event the team finished 7th, the best performance for a very long time but a shoulder injury to Maria meant that once we qualified for the quarters she had to withdrawn for the rest of the games in the team, individual and doubles.

As a team England were drawn in Group F with Switzerland, Finland, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Greece as well for Level 2.

 
England had an early start on Friday the 10th of July against Greece and three wins for Tin Tin, Maria and Lois made sure the team started on a positive note.

Maria's game vs Chatzilygeroudi Georgia: -13, 3, 10, -8, 7

The afternoon game at three o'clock followed the same pattern and score for a 3-0 win over Finland.
Maria's game vs Kirichenko Anna: 4, 2, 9



On Saturday the team faced Switzerland with both countries having two wins under their belt. England won 3-1 with two wins from Tin Tin and one from Lois.
Maria's game vs  Reust, Celine: -4, -8, -3

Against Bosnia and Hercegovina the team won 3-0 with each girl getting a win.
Maria's game vs Ehic Elda: 8, 6, 6

On Sunday for the play off the team faced Estonia and came winners with a 3-2 score.
Maria's game vs Vameri Airi: -9, 7, -7, 7, 9

 At seven o'clock the team faced the mighty Germans and reached the last-8 by beating them 3-1 with two wins from Tin Tin and one from Lois.
Maria's game vs  Wan Yuan: -6, 0, -9

Unfortunately this was the last game for Maria. Th team then went to lose to Romania and Sweden 3-2 and by beating Belgium 3-2 finishing seventh.

Senior Nationals 2015 - Gallery of Pics

All photos courtesy of Alan Man - available at flickr

A Gallore of Medals

At the Senior Nationals (Redbridge Sports and Leisure Centre, Friday to Sunday 1st of March) Maria participated at four events and managed to get a medal in all of them. For the Mixed Doubles with her Kingfisher partner reached the semi-finals, for the Under21s reached the final, for the Women's Singles lost in the semin-final to Kelly Sibley (the number one seed) with a notable win over Hannah Hicks (higher in the rankings and a member of the senior squad).

At the podium

The crown though came when Maria with her partner Tin Tin Ho won the Women's Doubles beating Karina Le Fevre and Emma Vickers 3-1.
The young combination started positively in thought and deed, taking the first 11-5. The second was closer, two good points at 9-9 winning it for Ho and Tsaptsinos.
It seemed as if the power base had shifted as greater experience told in the third and errors began to creep in to the young pair’s play as Le Fevre and Vickers took it 11-4.
The fourth was well matched and the key point came at 9-8 to Ho and Tsaptsinos. They won that one to bring up two championship points, and needed only one to get their name on the trophy.
Afterwards Maria commented: “It’s really good. Hopefully we can do it for many more years to come and it’s not just a one-off. Last year we beat them in the semi-finals, so we had one up on them already. We felt we had to play our own game and dominate from the beginning. We made too many unforced errors in the third and they got on top of us, but we relaxed in the fourth.
As for her performance for the singles Maria said: “I’m really happy to have beaten Hannah Hicks, I wasn’t expected to get beyond the quarter-final. I had no chance against Kelly. She was one shot ahead of me every time, but next year I’ll come back and we’ll see.”
The Kingfisher club player added: “I’d like to dedicate my win to the late Brian Halliday (who died earlier this year), he was inspiration to me and drove me to what I am today! No other man would have made me love the sport as much as him, and I’m ever so grateful.”
In previous rounds Maria and Tin beat Lois Peake / Emma Tovey 3-1 (9 10 -5 4) and Abbie Milwain / Natalie Slater 3-0 (7 5 10).

Maria and Tin celebrating the gold medal

 On Friday for the Under21s Maria faced at the group stage Isobel Ashley and Kate Cheer (who only last weekend had won the Cadet Masters) and finished top with two 3-0 wins (vs Isobel 7 5 7 and vs Kate 4 8 5).
Then Maria had a bye round and for the Quarter Final she met another Kingfisher player Megan Knowles with Maria winning 3-0 (3 4 4). Next round it was against Emily Bolton, a game that went to five sets since Emily managed to push Maria away from the table and winning a considerable number of rallies. Maria though kept her concentration and won on the fifth (5 8 -11 -5 8). On the final an exchausted and mentally tired Maria lost to Tin Tin 3-0 (-6 -5 -9) therefore unable to repeat last year's result. For the Women's singles because of Maria's seeding the group stage was avoided but this meant she had to meet Lois Peake without any real game preparation and Lois won the first set 11-9 but a strong Maria emerged to win the next four 3 5 8 and 9.Maria's next opponent was Hannah Hicks, a rare chopper, and a recent Commonwealth squad member. All the training at Kingfisher versus David Barr paid off eventually since Maria recorded her first win against Hannah in a game that it was an advert for the game of table tennis. The contrast between styles and the pendulum of points made it a very entertaining game for the spectators but not perhaps for the coaches. Hannah won the first set 11-9 but Maria went 3-1 up with 11-6 11-6 11-2 and whereas most people thought it was over and despite that Hannah was 4-0 down on the sixth game she managed after a time out to win the fisth set 11-7 and with the same score on the next set to equalise to 3-3. Again people would now bet in favour of Hannah since psychologically had the upper hand Maria managed to show patience once more and taking the right shot at the right time to win 11-8 and reach for the first time the semi finals. At the semi finals she faced Kelly Sibley, the number 1 seed, who proved very strong and very determined not to let Maria into the game. Surprisingly this was the first time Kelly and Maria had met in a competition therefore the inexperience palying against Kelly showed as well. For the record Kelly won 4-0 (6 2 5 4). At the mixed doubles on Friday Maria and Tom won 3-1 versus Joe Pilkington and Kate Cheer and then on Saturday they beat Chris Dorrand and Abbie Milwain with the same score (8 -2 7 11) to reach the semifinal against Sam Walker and Tin Tin Ho (last year's winners and eventual winners). Maria and Tom lost 3-0 (9 5 9).
You can watch Maria's Under21 Group Stages Games (4:21:35)
The doubles final (but unfortunately with the wrong commentary, starting at 25:00) can be seen here
The livestream of the semifinal game against Kelly Sibley can be watched as well (starting at around 4:38)

Czech Junior Open

Silver Medalists

A great performance by Maria and Tin Tin who reached the final of the doubles only to lose 3-0 to the number 1 seeds from Japan. On their way to the final the number 9 seeds notably beat the second seeds from France. 

Round of 32
Tin-Tin Ho & Maria Tsaptsinos beat Kyojin Ku & Yubin Shin (KOR) 3-2 (9-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-13, 12-10)
Round of 16
Tin-Tin Ho & Maria Tsaptsinos beat Izabela Lupulesku (SRB) & Valeria Shcherbatykh (RUS) 3-2 (8-11, 5-11, 11-8, 12-10, 11-9)
Quarter-finals
Tin-Tin Ho & Maria Tsaptsinos beat Pauline Chasselin & Marie Migot (FRA) 3-0 (11-6, 12-10, 11-4)
Semi-finals
Tin-Tin Ho & Maria Tsaptsinos beat Luisa Sager & Jennie Wolf (GER) 3-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-6)
Final
Tin-Tin Ho &  Maria Tsaptsinos lost to Rira Ishikawa & Ayane Morita (JPN) 0-3 (9-11, 7-11, 8-11)

For the singles Maria had two wins at Group 21
Maria Tsaptsinos beat Karolina Lalak (POL) 3-1 (5-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-3)
 Maria Tsaptsinos beat Kamila Sikorova (CZE) 3-0 (11-7, 11-4, 11-5)
and then another win
Maria Tsaptsinos beat Luisa Sager (GER) 4-1 (10-12, 11-5, 11-8, 11-9, 11-6)
but lost at last 32 round
 Maria Tsaptsinos lost to Marie Migot (FRA) 1-4 (11-7, 5-11, 7-11, 5-11, 8-11)

Womens British League

The second weekend of the Women's British League took place at Doncaster last weekend. The Ormesby team won their third consecutive Premier British title in a very convincing manner, dropping only two games in total (one per weekend).
In the words of Table Tennis England report "The quartet of Karina Le Fevre, Maria Tsaptsinos, Sarah Berge and Chloe Whyte will go down as one of the most dominant teams ever, few will be able to replicate their performance".
 
Listen to an interview of Alan Ransome (coach of Ormesby) at the end of the weekend. Reports for all rounds can be found here.


  Maria's individual statistics read Played 20 Won 19 (95%). In the three years Maria has represented the club she has won won 44 out of 48 games.
Rosemary Rainton, Knighton Park 11-3 11-4 11-7
Karen Smith. Knighton Park 11-5 11-7 7-11 11-2
Gillian Edwards. Halton TTC 11-5 11-3 11-2
Janay Elizabeth Gibson, Halton TTC 1 11-6 11-8 11-3
Sophie Neil, Burton Uxbridge TTC 12-10 11-3 11-5
Kate Hughes, Burton Uxbridge TTC 11-3 11-7 11-6
Yolanda King, YHL 11-9 8-11 10-12 11-1 11-6
Rachel Trevorrow, YHL 11-4 11-5 16-14
Emma Vickers, Draycott East Midlands 1 11-8 11-9 11-8
Alice Loveridge, Draycott East Midlands 1 7-11 8-11 11-8 8-11

Senior British League : Premier Division

Maria made her maiden appearance for the Kingfisher Senior Premier British League Team at London Academy on Sunday the 25th of January.
She played two games against Nottingham Sycamore I (currently joint leaders of the division) and lost to Adam Harrison 1-3 (10-12, 11-9, 1-11, 6-11) and beat Daniel Lowe 3-2 (7-11, 7-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-8) coming back from a two set deficit.

What a great start to 2015!

Maria during a long weekend faced in a round robin fashion the other top 11 players that were invited to the Junior Masters for the 2014-15 season. Maria won the title impressively with 11 wins, all of them 3-0 including the last match versus her friend and number 1 junior Tin Tin Ho. Not certain yet but it seems that not dropping a set might be in the history books.

At the end Maria was quoted as follows "“I played some of the best table tennis I’ve ever played. I focused on every match – and every match was different. People have different styles and you’ve got to impose your games on them and not let them dominate." It was very impressive indeed that on both days Maria was concentrating against every opponent.

 The Table Tennis England report can be found here together with a list of the full results.

 vs Amy Blagbrough 9 6 9
vs Stephanie Cross 6 4 9
vs Katie Barlow 4 3 3
vs Kate Cheer 4 7 8
vs Bethany Farnworth 8 5 4
vs Isabelle Joubelly 6 7 4
vs Denise Payet 10 4 3
vs Amy Humphreys 3 6 9
vs Olivia Churchill 5 6 1
vs Lois Peake 10 9 3

vs Tin Tin Ho 9 6 11