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

Kingfisher II team - Senior British League

Maria, Harri, Federico and Takumi represented Kingfisher at the Senior British League (Div 3) at Wolverhampton. The team finished with 3 wins and 1 draw and currently are second and hopeful for promotion.





This is an interesting competition for Maria because she competes against men in the majority of the games. She was the second ranked player which meant she had to compete against the number ones and threes of the other clubs.

On Saturday the 13th of December we faced Elgre Draycott IV and Cliffedale Chandlers and won 6-2 and 7-1 respectively.
Maria's individual results are as follows:
Kate Hughes: w 3-0 (2, 7, 7)
Ben Willson: w 3-1 (-7, 6, 9, 5)
Karl Brown: w 3-0 (5, 4, 7)
Danny Cox: w 3-0 (4, 8, 5)

On the following day we faced Wood Green (won 7-1) and the current leaders Whitworth Academy I (drew 4-4), and Maria's results were:
Jamie Davies: w 3-1 (9, -8, 10, 4)
Jesse Kendrick-Hill: w 3-0 (11, 7, 6)
Samuel Perry: l 2-3(-10, 10, 4, -6, -8)
Edward Lynn: w 3-1 (7, 9, -9, 11)

For full details follow this link

Finlandia Open 2014

Maria's first senior tournament at Finland, 4th to the 7th of December 2014, provided a platform to test her abilities. Maria travelled to Finland with Karina Le Fevre and they were unfortunate to meet at the first round the fifth seeds of the team event from Poland. They lost 3-0 with Maria playing Magdalena Siroska with a World ranking of 211 and managed to get one set (-6 12 -8 -5). Maria is currently ranked 506th at the Seniors with 1297 points.
The following days, for singles, Maria finished 51st overall with 4 wins and 3 losses.

• Rei Yamamoto (Japan): 0-4 (-7, -3, -8, -4)
• Elena Dubkova (Bulgaria, WR163,  1985 points) : 4-0 to Maria (walk over)
• Irina Ermakova (Russia, WR293, 1719 points): 2-4 (-8, 6, 4, -10, -9, -6)
• Anna Ivannikova (Russia, WR468, 1377 points): 4-0 (6, 6, 11, 8)
• Alexandra Falarz (Poland, WR430, 1436 points): 4-3 (-9, 9, 8, -5, 6, -8, 6)
• Rahel Aschwanden (Switzerland, WR247, 1797 points): 0-4 (-5, -9, -8, -6)
• Michaella Karlsson (Sweden, WR428, 1448 points): 4-3 (-9, -9, -11, 3, 5, 6, 9)

Maria's post match interview

“I didn’t think I was on form at all until the final – I thought Tin-Tin was going to wallop me. But for some reason when I get into a final, sub-consciously something changes and I start playing table tennis.

“Whoever gets the best start in sets tends to dominate but the final set is always close.

“We’re really good friends, we’ve played each other for years and we know each other’s games. She doesn’t need to tell me what serve she’s doing, I know by looking at her face, her position, what she’s going to do – but that works in the singles as well!”

Available at the website of TTE

Maria retains her Junior National Titles

Maria on Saturday the 22nd of November retained her Junior National Title by defeating in the final Tin Tin Ho 3-2 overall.
Here is the video of the last set of the game.

This was followed by winning with her partner Tin Tin the girls doubles. A video of the semi-final:

and introducing the competitors.

The victory as reported on the website of tabletennis365, sponsors of Maria; Kingfisher Table Tennis club and the official Table Tennis England website.

Maria's interview before the Nationals

Maria was the winner of the Junior Nationals last year. Few days before this years competition Maria was asked for her thoughts. The article can be found at the Table Tennis England site
Helshan Weerasinghe and Maria Tsaptsinos are relishing the chance to defend their National Junior Singles titles in Preston at the weekend.
Both players enjoyed their maiden triumphs at this level last season, beating Igor Morais and Tin-Tin Ho in their respective finals.
Tsaptsinos had started the event as second seed behind Ho, and the positions will be the same this time around.
The two are the class acts in the field and it would be no surprise if they once more locked horns in the final.
And, despite being the defending champion, Tsaptsinos believes the pressure is no different to last year and accepts that Ho is still the one to beat.
“I don’t think the pressure is any different,” said the Reading player. I don’t go out thinking ‘I must win’, I just go and do my best.
“At the moment, Tin-Tin is playing well and she’s beaten me the last couple of times we’ve played. But on the day, you never really know – it’s how you play and how you are mentally and physically.
“We train together and I don’t think there’s much difference in our games.”
The pair are now together on the England scene and both recently featured at the Hungarian Youth Open.
Tsaptsinos said international events were now forming a greater focus for the pair – although the Nationals are still high up in the order of priorities.
“Making your mark in England is one thing, and you always like to win those big competitions, there’s no doubt about it,” she said.
“When we were younger, it was the be-all and end-all, but now we’re getting all these chances to go abroad as well.
“Tin-Tin’s getting those international results right now, but I didn’t play at the top of my game in Hungary – maybe it was the pressure and nerves of my first big tournament since the big improvements in my game. But those results will come in time.
“I feel my game has improved tremendously over the last 18 months and people are starting to notice that.”