The German women enter the European Team Table Tennis Championships confidently as defending champions. The mix of experience and freshness is right.
D The women certainly have something to lose. But the problem lies with the men: This is how one could summarize the German Table Tennis Federation’s situation before the European Team Championship in the sunny Zadar, Croatia. While the DTTB women’s team has to defend their title since Sunday, the men are not only playing against their past but also for the future.
To put it simply: German men’s table tennis has already lost much of its former dominance in Europe and is floundering at a still-good level. The future, however, seems to belong to the women.
And it goes like this: The reigning junior world champion is named Annett Kaufmann and in the world rankings she is not even the best German, but only the fourth. Sabine Winter, this time the team captain, has a lot of experience at 33, but last autumn she challenged herself again: she has since been playing with an anti-spin rubber and, remarkably, is climbing the world rankings again.
Quality Across the Board
Mia Griesel, third at the Junior World Championship, is the team’s youngster; Nina Mittelham is expected to return to her former strength after long-lasting back problems. In addition, Yuan Wan and Xiaona Shan are established forces in the team. The only one who must stay home is Ying Han, winner of the European Top 16 tournament after also a long injury layoff; she apparently needed a break from competition.
In this regard, the signs are favorable for the Germans. Although it will be nearly impossible to repeat the sweep they accomplished in 2023 at the European Championship—consecutive 3:0 wins up to the final, albeit with different lineups—the competition—notably the Romanians, also France and Sweden—does not sleep. But the team spirit is there, and if the momentum that is decisive in table tennis comes, the DTTB squad could go far. And the best part is: no one will be angry if they don’t make it. The men’s team will be different too, that much is certain.
We start with the preliminaries, where Serbia and Ukraine should not pose major challenges. After that, knockout games begin from the Round of 16. Until perhaps a glorious end.
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