This time the backdrop was, well: a little more familiar. Most recently, Sabine Winter had served at the European Championships in Munich, winning individual bronze at the European Table Tennis Championships in the Rudi-Sedlmayer Hall in August. The home crowd had enthusiastically supported the local hero along the way, carrying her through the second round, when she was almost eliminated by Romania’s Irina Ciobanu, up to a semi-final in which she bit her teeth so much that in the end she only had two points were missing to reach the final and the possible title. All this in a goose bumps atmosphere and with the frenetic cheering of her family in the stands.
At the start of the TSV Schwabhausen Bundesliga on Saturday, Winter was again the celebrated local hero, although there were a few thousand fewer spectators in the Heinrich-Loder-Halle. And as in Munich, the 29-year-old had to deal with a good friend. In the semifinals of the European Championship it was the Austrian Sofia Polcanova, at whose wedding she was one of the bridesmaids. In Schwabhausen it was her long-time teammate Mateja Jeger who switched to TTC Weinheim in the summer. In this case, Sabine Winter prevailed in three sentences.
Of course, these duels could not really be compared, which was not only due to the slightly different framework. Winter was the clear favourite. Jeger tried unusually aggressively, knowing that she was an outsider and the aggravating fact that Schwabhausen’s coach Alexander Yahmed knew her inside out – but none of that helped. Winter, the German champion, had better answers at 11:9, 11:5, 11:7.
In the end it was 6:2 for Schwabhausen, who won both doubles at the beginning. “We’re not used to that,” Yahmed marveled. In the surprising combination with defender Alina Nikitchanka, Winter won in three sets, as did Liu Yangzi with Mercedesz Nagyvaradi. The latter then defeated Giorgia Piccolin in singles, who was at least in the quarter-finals at the European Championships in Munich – and was eliminated there by Sabine Winter. On Saturday, Winter didn’t have any problems against national team colleague Yuan Wan (3-0), who had just moved to Weinheim from Kolbermoor, and received Yahmed’s rating of “outstanding”.
Kolbermoor also started against Weinheim on Sunday. Without his new number one, Linda Bergstrom of Sweden, against the same line-up it was only enough for a 5:5 reunion with Wan, although Kolbermoor’s Kristin Lang got the full haul in doubles and both of her singles.
For winter, things are moving on straight away: to the Team World Championships in Chengdu. Less familiar, but with more audience.
