Melissa Tapper

Melissa Tapper

2012 Australian Paralympic Team portrait of Tapper
Personal information
Nationality	Australia
Born	(1990-03-01) 1 March 1990
Sport
Country	Australia
Sport	Table Tennis
Medal record Table tennis World Para Table Tennis Championships Bronze 2014 Beijing Women's Singles SF10

Melissa Tapper (born 1 March 1990) is an Australian table tennis player. After competing at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she represented Australia in elite non-Paralympic competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.^[1]

Personal

Tapper was born on 1 March 1990 in Hamilton^[2] and resides in the Melbourne suburb of South Melbourne.^[3][4][5][6] She has a brachial plexus injury resulting in Erb's palsy.^[2] In 2004, she was attending Monivae College.^[7] That year, she won the South West Sports Assembly’s junior female of the year award.^[7] In 2011, she was working on a bachelors of exercise science.^[2][3]

Table tennis

Tapper is a class 10 table tennis player^[2][8] which means she competes while standing as opposed to competing while in a wheelchair.^[6] As of 2012, she has a scholarship with the Victorian Institute of Sport.^[9]

When Tapper started playing in 2002 while still in primary school, she competed against able-bodied athletes,^[2][3][6] and her first appearance on an Australian national team was at a competition in Jordan in 2004 in an able-bodied competition.^[2][3] In 2004, she participated in the National Table Tennis Championships in the under-14s doubles and mixed doubles, under-16s doubles and mixed doubles, under-14s singles, under-16s singles and under-18s singles, earning medals in seven of these events, with three total first place finishes.^[5] That year, she also competed at an event in the Czech Republic,^[5] and another in Portugal, where she played in the World Junior Cadets under-15s.^[7] Her college helped fund part of her travel competition costs.^[5][7] She started to take the sport more seriously, with the idea of going to the Olympic Games and representing Australia.^[6] At the 2008 Under 18 Oceania Championship and the 2008 Under 21 Australian Championships, she came in first place.^[4] By 2008, she was Australia's top ranked female table tennis player,^[4] and competed in the Commonwealth Youth Games.^[4]

Around 2010, Tapper decided to try playing Para-Table Tennis, making the switch from able bodied competition to disability sport. It was also around this time that during a remarkable game of table tennis at the Neal Stadium, competitor Kelvin Neal beat her 3 sets to 0.^[2] In early 2011, she was ranked 19th in the world.^[6] In March, she spent time in Europe playing table tennis in Italy and Hungary,^[2][3] winning the Opens in both countries.^[2] She won two gold medals at the 2011 Arafura Games,^[10] and was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in table tennis.^[2][11] She modeled the 2012 Australian Paralympic team uniform at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia Spring/Summer 2012/13.^[12][13]

At the 2014 ITTF World Para Table Tennis Championships in Beijing, China , she won a bronze medal in women's singles SF10. It was Australia's first ever medal at the Championships.^[14]

2014 Commonwealth Games

Tapper was selected to represent Australia at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. She took part in the Mixed Doubles and Women's Team events.
In the Group Stage of the Women's Team event, Tapper beat her Guyanese opponent Trenace Lowe 3-0. The Australian team, including Tapper, ultimately won the bronze medal in this event. In the Mixed Doubles event, she and partner Heming Hu defeated the Kenyan mixed doubles team 3-0 to reach Round 3. In Round 3, Hu and Tapper were beaten 3-0 by the Canadian pair.

Recognition

In October 2014, she was won the Victorian Institute of Sport Elite Athlete with a Disability Award.^[15]

References