Maria guest speaker at Reading Boys

As reported by the Reading Boys tweet

Fantastic Sports Personality Evening with Commonwealth Bronze Medallist in table tennis Maria Tsaptsinos giving an inspirational speech pic.twitter.com/YSqvWh4KnY

— RS Sport and PE (@RSSportandPE) December 11, 2018

Italian escapades

Maria is a member of the Tennistavolo Vallecamonica team in Italy, participating at the A1 division.
A report on the  second weekend where the team drew 3-3 and videos of the first weekends can be found at YouTube.
versus Li Xiang
versus Stribikova
 versus Barani
versus Loan

EuropeanChampionships Away Win at Norway

Maria  put England ahead by defeating Ilka Doval 3-1 (11-3, 11-7, 12-14, 11-9), then Tin Tin made it 2-0 versus Rebekka Carlsen (11-8, 11-7, 9-11, 11-4). Denise Payet unfortunately lost to Rikke Skattet 3-0 but Tin Tin made sure that England won by winning 3-1 verus Doval (12-10, 12-14, 11-9, 11-3).

European Table Tennis Championships

At Alicante, Spain the ITTF European Table Tennis Championships took place with Maria representing England. Maria was drawn in group 14 as a third seed with JEGER Mateja (CRO), MARCHETTI Nathalie (Bel) and IMANOVA Maryam (AZE).
For the first game Maria won versus the Belgian player with a 4-0 score (10, 7, 5, 7), a great win considering that Nathalie was 150 ranking places above. For the second game lost to the Croatian player 2-4 (-8, -5, 8, -12, 3, -6), with the fourth set being a critical one when at 10-8 it was a great opportunity to equalise the score. A 4-1 win over the Azerbaijan player it was enough for the next round qualification (-12, 5, 7, 6, 3) where Maria met BERGSTROM Linda and she lost 4-0 (-8, -3, -8, -9).

TASS Star of the Year

Maria was announced as the Star of the Year at the TASS awards. In the words of TASS:

"Table tennis player Maria Tsaptsinos was named as the winner of the Star of the Year category, the ultimate accolade in recognition of an outstanding achievement in sport or study. In April, the 21-year-old won a historic women’s team bronze medal at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games whilst also working towards a first class honours Geography degree."

Read more here

Because Maria was not able to attend the ceremony she was presented with the award prior to her university graduation by the TASS representative at Nottingham University.

And the TTE report can be found here

A stream of nominations and awards

Following the superb performance of the England team at the Commonwealth games Maria was nominated for the BUCS Sportswoman of the year. The University reported "Maria displayed her incredible talent as a table tennis player this year, and is currently ranking 3rd in England for the sport. This year, she claimed two golds and a silver at the BUCS Table Tennis Championships, and led the Nottingham Women’s Table Tennis to League 1 honors as well as the BUCS Big Wednesday Championship final without dropping a single match. She was selected to represent Team England at the Commonwealth Games in Australia, where she helped secure a bronze medal in the women’s team event. Amazingly, Maria also served as the club president for table tennis at the university while juggling her BUCS, international and academic commitments." 

Maria has also being nominated for the TASS Star of the Year award.She will be up against fellow Commonwealth Games bronze medallist from Gold Coast, shooter Sam Gowin, and British triple jump Champion Naomi Ogbeta, with the winners to be revealed at a presentation event on Saturday 21 July.

She was also presented with the Nottingham University Vice Chancellor medal.

Commonwealth Games: Looking Back

Gold Coast 2018 was Maria's first Commonwealth Games. She competed in the table tennis event at Oxenford Studios and won bronze in the women's team.

In the words of BBC "You'd want her on your team! " Watch Maria's incredible enthusiasm in the following link.


Ping Pong Passion

Read Maria's story at the Commonwealth Games site as she reveals her motivation behind table tennis success.

The local press release is here as well.

All sort of medals at the Nationals

During the four days of nationals Maria came home with a gold medal for the women's doubles (with Kelly Sibley), a silver medal for the Under 21s and a bronze for women's singles and mixed doubles (with Tom Jarvis). Another great collection of medals demonstrating how she deserved her Commonwealth collection and boosting Maria for the forthcoming games.

World Cup Results

The Women's team lost to Hong Kong 3-1 and to Singapore 3-0 at the World Cup games.
Reports of the games can be found here.
Maria says to local paper Reading Chronicle that England have learned from Team World Cup.

Womens Team Beats Norway

England Leopards women got their European Championships campaign off to a winning start today at the Copper Box Arena. The women needed four matches to see off Norway 3-1 in the Stage 1 of the tournament.
Read all about it!

Maria makes the Commonwealth squad

It was with great pride to hear of Maria's selection for the Commonwealth Games in April at Gold Coast of Australia. Maria has been selected together with Kelly Sibley, Tin Tin Ho and Denise Payet. This is Maria's first selection and she is looking forward to give her best for the Leopards.

This is the official Table Tennis England  Announcement and read Maria's reaction as reported by the local paper Reading Chronicle.

England Leopards new kit for Commonwealth

 Read the announcement here.

Maria to represent England at the World Cup

Maria has been selected for the ITTF Team World Cup at the Copper Box Arena which is from February 22-25, 2018.
England has been drawn against Hong Kong and Singapore.

The official Table Tennis England Announcement and as reported by the local paper Reading Chronicle.