Austria’s Sofia POLCANOVA is newly crowned champion in Women’s Singles Event at the European Championships Munich 2022. After very close opening game in the final Nina MITTELHAM of Germany sustained the shoulder injury in the second game and after the medical break she was forced to withdrew. Bronze medalists are SHAN Xiaona of Germany and Sabine WINTER also of Germany.
After the final POLCANOVA also bursted into tears.
“It’s a very sad situation. I don’t have words for Nina. This is unbelievable. To give up in the final I would be so broken. Of course I did not want to win like this. I think that I deserves to win but this win is not as beautiful as I had imagined. I told myself yesterday that I would cry today either if I lose or if I win because this week was such a crazy week where I played 15 matches in total and every match was on the edge and I am super empty. My emotions are running so high I don’t know what to think ” said POLCANOVA.
On her way to the final POLCANOVA beat Sabine WINTER of Germany Bernadette SZOCS of Romania Natalia PARTYKA of Poland Tin Tin HO of England and Ozge YILMAZ of Turkiye.
“I have been fighting for and dreaming about this so much. In 2018 I was bronze medallist and thought to myself ‘OK next time I want to get a gold medal’ but two years later I was injured so I didn’t play at my best. Now four years later I am just so happy.”
Nina recorded fantastic wins over SHAN Xiaona of Germany YUAN Jia Nan of France Andrea DRAGOMAN of Romania WAN Yuan of Germany and Charlotte LUTZ of France.
POLCANOVA clinched gold medal at the Championships few days ago in Women’s Doubles Event with Bernadette SZOCS. Previously in 2018 POLCANOVA won bronze in singles at the European Championships. She has silver from 2018 in Doubles with Jana NOSKOVA; silver in Team’s Event 2014 and in Mixed Doubles she also won silver 2018.
Germany’s National coach Tamara BOROS explained that Nina felt the pain in the triceps area yesterday on warming up but it worsened today. MITTELHAM put her brave face and started the match today but after the opening game the pain become to strong to continue.
Nina MITTELHAM was very sad after the final.
“I don’t know what I should say. You’re in the final and you want to go for the gold medal and from the beginning you feel that it’s not possible. I feel sad I could also have lost the match but to end it like this is not nice.”
On whether she can appreciate the silver medal:
“Right now it feels really hard to be happy about my silver but in a tournament like this it is a long way to the final and if you then make it to the final and have a chance to win gold but can’t compete anymore it feels much worse. Right now it’s really difficult but I think that maybe in the future I can be proud of it. To play this competition at home with so much pressure from the crowd from yourself and win silver. Maybe in one two or three weeks I will smile when I think about this.
On the injury:
“It just hit into my arm and then I felt that I couldn’t really play and strike the ball hard. At the end I just had very little feeling in my arm because of the injury. I couldn’t get enough power into my game. It’s just annoying that it happened to me.”
