Undefeated: Tapper picks up third gold for 2011

Wed, May 11 2011

Golden girl Melissa Tapper remains undefeated in 2011 after winning gold in the AWD table tennis singles at the Arafura Games in Darwin.

Tapper, 21, had a flawless five game competition to comfortably defeat her opponents including team mate and Australian Arafura Games flag bearer Rebecca McDonnell in the preliminary rounds, before defeating Japan’s Miyauchi 7-1-7 in a thrilling final of the class 10 competition.

“I’m pretty stoked to have won,” said the Melbourne athlete.

“The final was a bit of a tough one but once I fired up and got into the groove of things I was right.”

The win is Tapper’s third gold this year after becoming the first Paralympic female athlete to win back to back international gold medals at the Hungarian and Italian Opens earlier this year.

Tapper, who is ranked number eight in the world for Paralympic table tennis and number eight in Australia in able-bodied competition, only began competing as an athlete with a disability two years ago.

She is currently aiming to represent Australia at both the London Olympics and Paralympics, something that Table Tennis Australia High Performance Manager Sue Stevenson believes is a real possibility.

“She is very competitive with the best top Australian female players as well as in the Paralympic competition,” said Stevenson.

“Her win here is just amazing – the fact that she remains undefeated this year is going to help her move up the world rankings in Paralympic competition which is great thing leading into the China Para Open later this year.”

Stevenson says that with the likes of Tapper and a host of fresh new talent coming up the ranks, Australian Paralympic table tennis is well placed for future Paralympic Games.

“The support we are provided by the Australian Paralympic Committee is just unbelievable, they can’t do enough to assist the preparation of our athletes,” she said.

“These athletes are so lucky because all of their overseas competition trips are fully funded; we have a full sport science sport medicine program in place, excellent specialists working with the kids as well as fantastic coaching staff and management staff, so the whole Australian program is really good. We wouldn’t be able to do it without the support and belief the APC has in table tennis.”

Tapper will now play in the team’s event alongside a full Australian squad on Thursday and Friday.