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Twice Chelmsford mens singles champion, Lorestas Trumpauskas; aged 30 lives in Walthamstow with his wife and five year old son. Having arrived in the United Kingdom in December 1997 he has now virtually gained permanent residency rights.

Whilst living in Lithuania Lorestas has been their National champion nine times. He has also won two junior and one U21 titles in the Soviet Union where he holds an advantage of three wins out of four over a young up-and-coming Vladimar Samsonov the current World no. 1. The fact that Samsonov won the European cadet title at 11 years of age makes this a more impressive achievement than some might give it credit for.

Table tennis has taken Lorestas to North Korea, Egypt, Iraq and many parts of the former Soviet Union including the now famous capital of Chechnya, Grozny. Lorestas has represented Lithuania in the European championships in Birmingham in 1994 and Stuttgart in 1996. And has made an immediate impact on English table tennis, currently having a dummy ranking around the no 17 mark.

Lorestas currently plays for Essex Senior first team in division one of the county championships where with other players of the calibre Cris Sladden, Clive Carthy, Shelley Ruocco, Linda Radford and Natalie Bawden it seems perfectly reasonable to expect them to get promoted to the premier division.

Lorestas has only played in the Chelmsford League this season although he is also playing in the high-standard invitation League at BATTS where his team are currently placed third. He has also shown real loyalty to his club Adeyfield by playing for them in division 2 (south) of the British League when he could easily have moved to a premier club had he wished. So far this season he has not lost for Adeyfield.

Possibly his most impressive results to date were achieved at the 1998 Midlands Open where, as a complete unknown, he charged through to the mens singles semi-finals with wins over such notables as Steve Shaw and Michael Isherwood. He only lost over three ends to very highly rated Gareth Herbert. He also lost out 22-20 in the third in last year's Essex Closed Mens Singles final against Clive Carthy and will be hoping to go one better this year.

Lorestas in action on Finals Night

Using his high serve to deadly effect

We are grateful to Ev Lucas for providing general background information about Lorestas and to Andrew Halling for providing the photographs