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

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