German table tennis has never had someone like Annett Kaufmann. In its history it has produced heroes such as Jörg Roßkopf, Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov and heroines such as Olga Nemes, Nicole Struse and Nina Mittelham. But when Kaufmann, 18, came on as a short-term substitute at the Olympics in August, showed sensationally energetic table tennis, seemingly completely carefree, defeated the top Japanese player Miwa Harimoto, among others, and radiantly led the German team into the semi-finals, it became clear how much German table tennis could use a woman as a media star after all the successful men.
Because Kaufmann urgently needed a break in late summer after a grueling year with her high school diploma (grade 2.0) and the Olympics (fourth place with the team), she decided not to go on an extensive tour of the television studios. “After the Olympics, it was with a heavy heart that I had to cancel a lot of TV appearances,” she says. “It was very sad, but it just didn’t fit into my plan.” The player, who was joining the Bavarian Bundesliga club Kolbermoor for the new season, spent three weeks has changed, even their internet activities. After the Olympics, her Instagram account exploded from 11,000 to 48,000 followers.
SZ Plus Table tennis player Annett Kaufmann
:“Annett is a miracle”
Carefree and cheeky, 18-year-old Annett Kaufmann brought the German table tennis women into the Olympic semi-finals – and surprised everyone with five wins in five singles. Your career should only really begin now.
The European Championships in singles, doubles and mixed doubles begin this Tuesday in Linz, Austria. After Timo Boll’s retirement from the national team, Dimitrij Ovtcharov, Dang Qiu and Patrick Franziska are considered promising starters among the German men. For women, Kaufmann plays in all three disciplines: in singles, with Nina Mittelham in doubles and with Patrick Franziska in mixed doubles. Kaufmann is currently number 103 in the world rankings, making the currently most sensational German player purely statistically only the fifth best behind Mittelham (No. 20), Ying Han (No. 42), Xiaona Shan (No. 44) and Sabine Winter (No . 57).
Sports talent runs in the family – father Andrej was a professional ice hockey player
In Germany, Kaufmann can be seen at the top international level in Frankfurt at the beginning of November at the German table tennis tournament, which is worth half a million euros. She received a wildcard for the World Table Tennis Champions tournament in the ball sports hall. “Annett helped us a lot to get the team into the semi-finals at the Olympic Games,” says association sports director Richard Prause, “that’s why it was an easy decision for us to award the organizer wildcard.” Prause calls the champions tournament for Kaufmann the “next small step in their development”.
It remains to be seen whether Kaufmann feels flattered when she is recently compared to Timo Boll – but from a purely sporting perspective, that is completely premature. Her first title as German individual champion in June in Erfurt doesn’t help either. “Of course I feel honored when people call me the new Timo Boll,” she says, “but I would want to stay away from something like that for now and not put any pressure on myself.”
Kaufmann was born in Wolfsburg in 2006 because her father Andrej, a native Kazakh and professional ice hockey player, was playing for the Wolfsburg Grizzlys. In 2008 the family moved to Bietigheim-Bissingen because of ice hockey. Father Andrej became second division champion with the Steelers – and daughter Annett started playing table tennis three years later at the age of five. She still lives at home with her family and trains mainly with SV Böblingen, for whom she played in the Bundesliga until the team withdrew after last season. As a national player, she also regularly visits the Federal Training Center in Düsseldorf. First of all, Kaufmann only wants to play table tennis now, but in the long term it could lead to a dual career, as is the case for many athletes. Kaufmann has already asked the police about sports funding. She says: “I could well imagine becoming a detective.”
At the European Championships in Linz, Kaufmann will play against a qualifier in the first round. That seems feasible. In the second round, however, she would face the currently best European, the top-seeded Romanian Bernadette Szocs. But Kaufmann doesn’t want to let herself be disturbed by the calm that has helped her so far in her development. “I see the whole thing in a relatively relaxed way,” she says, “my goal is to improve my play, use what I’ve learned in training in competition and become mentally stronger.”
To become the face of German table tennis, you need a lot of humility, hard work and perseverance. The early retiree Timo Boll, 43, could sing a song about it to the ardent Taylor Swift fan Annett Kaufmann.
