Andrew Baggaley (born 26 February 1983) is a professional

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

player from

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...

. He is England's leading table tennis medal winner of all time in the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...

, winning two gold medals in Manchester, England (2002), 1 silver medal in Melbourne, Australia (2006), 1 silver and 1 bronze medal in Delhi, India (2010) and 1 silver in Glasgow, Great Britain.

Early life and junior career

Baggaley was born in

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

. He started playing the sport with his mother Yvonne in the back garden of the family home in Milton Keynes in the Summer of 1987 aged 4 and has been coached almost exclusively by his brother Stephen Baggaley throughout his career. Andrew Baggaley became Britain’s youngest ever professional table tennis player by signing terms to play for Brussels-based Belgian National League team TTC Logis Auderghem aged 13 (1996). He has subsequently played in national leagues across Europe including Germany, Sweden and Spain. Andrew Baggaley made his England Junior International début aged 12 in the European Cadet (Under 14) Six Nations Championships in Soham (1995), and went on to win European Youth Medals at both Cadet and Junior (Under 17) categories; England’s first medals at these prestigious events for almost a decade alongside the likes of David Melder. Baggaley has won 23 English National Junior titles and has been ranked England number 1 in every age group (Under 10,11,12,14,17,21). He also became the youngest ever British Men’s Singles Champion aged 15 when he won the British Home Countries Title in Oban, Scotland (1998).

Senior career

He made his England Senior International début at the French Open in 1997 aged 14 and also represented England at the 44th World Table Tennis Championships in Manchester, England later that year. Baggaley became England number 1 senior aged 20 (2003), the youngest at the time for 20 years. He is a triple English Men’s Singles National Champion by winning the senior title in Sheffield in 2002, 2008 and 2010. At the time, his 2002 victory aged just 19 was the youngest winner of the Men’s Singles National Title for 40 years and he is still only one of 3 teenage winners of the title.

Notable wins

Baggaley has defeated many world-class players from both Europe and Asia including victories over Peter Karlsson (Sweden) and Jean-Michel Saive (Belgium) both former European Singles Champion, Chiang Peng-Lung (Chinese Taipei) the former Asian Singles Champion, Gao Ning (Singapore) the Asian Cup champion and Jörgen Persson (Sweden) the 1991 World Champion. In November 2011 Andrew Baggaley officially became the highest-ranked British player on the ITTF ranking list with a World Ranking of 142.

International tournament wins

Baggaley is England's leading table tennis medal winner of all time in the

, winning two gold medals in Manchester, England (2002), 1 silver medal in Melbourne, Australia (2006), 1 silver and 1 bronze medal in Delhi, India (2010) and 1 silver in Glasgow, Great Britain. He is also World Champion 2015 of Ping Pong, after beating reigning champion Maxim Shmyrev in the semi-final and Alexander Fleming in the final. He also won the World Championship of Ping Pong in 2016, 2019, beating three previous champions on his way to the trophy, and 2020.

Other roles

Andrew Baggaley was the Table Tennis motion capture actor for the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

game Kinect Sports. He was a Bid Ambassador for the London 2012 Olympics where he was selected to play in the Team GB Table Tennis team.

References

External links