by Simon Daish

Sabine Winter, 24 years old, was a member of the German team which secured a bronze medal finish at the Liebherr 2010 World Team Championships in Moscow, Russia but her personal best Women’s Singles finish at a World Championships came two years ago at the Qoros 2015 World Championships in Suzhou, China where she reached the second round.

Now as we approach the start of the new ITTF World Tour year, Winter has her eyes set on participating at some of the year’s major competitions, but appearing at the World Championships in Düsseldorf remains the main objective for the German competitor in the first half of the year.

“You think a bit of the World Championships, but there are several other big tournaments earlier in the year the 2017 Europe Top 16 Cup for example and some World Tour tournaments. The World Championships, however, are always in the back of the head, because half a year until then is not so long” – Sabine Winter.

The Qoros 2015 World Championships saw Sabine Winter make a strong start to the Women’s Singles competition with a comfortable 4-0 victory over Colombia’s Lady Ruano, but a tricky encounter with Feng Tianwei of Singapore in the Round of 64 was as far as Winter managed.

However, Winter put in a positive display at the Liebherr 2016 European Championships where she partnered up with Kristin Silbereisen to take the Women’s Doubles title alongside achieving a quarter-final finish at the Seamaster 2016 Women’s World Cup. The German player is confident that she can build upon her positive end to 2016 and go far at this year’s World Championships if the draw is kind to her.

“Going by the experience of the last World Championships, the Singles is the most difficult…it depends very much  on the draw. I’m looking forward… even more to the Doubles and Mixed Doubles because the chances of going further in them are greater (than in the singles)” – Sabine Winter.