MARIA Tsaptsinos notched a memorable victory against a player ranked 145 places above her in the world as she reached the knockout stages of the European Championships.

Ranked third in her group and therefore not seeded to progress, the Reading star started brilliantly by beating Nathalie Marchetti of Belgium, who is ranked 146 in the world against Tsaptsinos’ ranking of 291.

It was an emphatic victory too as the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist won 4-0 (12-10, 11-5, 11-7, 11-5).

A 4-2 (11-8, 11-5, 8-11, 14-12, 3-11, 11-6) defeat followed to the group’s top player Mateja Jeger of Croatia, but Tsaptsinos sealed second place in the group by beating Azerbaijan’s Maryam Imanova 4-1 (12-14, 11-5, 11-7, 11-6, 11-3).

It put her into a preliminary round against Linda Bergstrom of Sweden, ranked 102 in the world, and it was a bridge too far as Tsaptsinos lost 4-0 (11-8, 11-3, 11-8, 11-9).

In the women’s doubles, Tsaptsinos played alongside Betel Nur Kahraman of Turkey, but were agonisingly edged out in their first match, in the second preliminary round, losing 3-2 (22-20, 5-11, 11-9, 5-11, 14-12) to Ganna Gaponova and Tetyana Bilenko of Ukraine.

In the mixed doubles, Tsaptsinos (pictured) teamed up with Callum Evans of Wales and they beat Abdullah Yigenler and Ozge Yilmaz of Turkey 3-1 (10-12, 12-10, 12-10, 11-5) in the first preliminary round, before being beaten 3-1 (11-8, 11-7, 9-11, 11-9) by Pavel Sirucek and Hana Matelova of the Czech Republic in the next round.