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)