Nina Mittelham and Xiaona Shan made a successful start to the Table Tennis World Championships in Durban (South Africa). Germany’s 16-year-old top talent Annett Kaufmann, on the other hand, was eliminated in the first round.
The Berlin double Mittelham/Shan asserted itself after slight initial problems with 3:1 sets (11:7, 8:11, 11:7, 11:7) against the Mexican outsider duo Arantxa Cossio Acevedes/Yadira Silva. In the next round, the Berliners will meet the winners of the duel between Amy Wang/Rachel Sang (USA) and Bernadette Szöcs/Sofia Polcanova (Romania/Austria).
Mittelham and Shan were also convincing in the second round singles matches. Mittelham defeated Reeth Tennison (India) 4-0, while Shan also recorded a comfortable 4-0 victory against Ni Xia Lian (Luxembourg).
Kaufmann loses to favorite Hirano
Annett Kaufmann was only narrowly defeated by the Japanese Miu Hirano. The 16-year-old European Junior Champion from SV Böblingen lost against the 2017 World Cup bronze medalist in the second round in 2:4 sets.
“Of course I’m sad that I’ve already been eliminated in the individual competition. But I can still be quite satisfiedsaid Kaufman.From my singles I take away that I can definitely go to the table with a lot of self-confidence. That it doesn’t matter who is facing you. Whether it’s someone from Cameroon or Japan, both are good and have their strengths and weaknesses. And I can win against anyone.“
Still competing in doubles
Kaufmann was already part of the German team that won the European Team Championship in 2021 and reached the semi-finals of the World Team Championship in 2022. In her first World Championship appearance in singles, she defeated Sarah Hanffou from Cameroon in 4:3 sets on Sunday. She is still competing in doubles in Durban: On Monday afternoon she made it into the third round alongside Sabine Winter (TSV Schwabhausen).
Especially among the women, promising talents are moving up in German table tennis. Kaufmann dominates the European young talent competitions. Josephina Neumann was already playing for TTC Berlin Eastside in the Bundesliga at the age of 13.
Shan/Franziska out
In the mixed competition, Shan and partner Patrick Franziska (Saarbrücken) suffered a narrow 2:3 defeat with 9:11 in the deciding set against number 3 seeded Frenchmen Yia Nan Yuan/Emmanuel Lebesson. For her third appearance at the World Cup, Mittelham forms a mixed duo with Dang Qiu (Düsseldorf).